And So, the Dark Age
by bren97122
Summary: (Uses characters and situations as established in The Huntress and the Deputy) The Great Collapse has come. But it did not come with the fires of nuclear war, but with a flash in the sky and the lights going out. The United States soon finds itself descending into a brutal new dark age. The people of Hope County must face foes old and new to survive this new world.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: Welcome readers, to my next lengthy Far Cry 5 story! This story uses characters and situations as established in _The Huntress and the Deputy_ , but takes place in an alternate universe. **

**Please enjoy and as always, let me know what you think.**

* * *

 _Oh Lord, the Great Dark Age,_

 _Won't be our end,_

 _When the world falls into the flames,_

 _We will rise again._

* * *

Deputy Morgan Rook looked up at his partner, Grace Armstrong.

"You seem done."

Grace took one last sip from her Snapple and tossed the empty bottle into the nearby trash can.

"Now I am."

"Great. Let's get going?"

"Hell yeah."

The two deputies got up from their seats at a picnic bench overlooking the Henbane River and walked over to the nearby Hope County Sheriff's Department marked Chevy truck to resume their patrol of the Holland Valley.

"You wanna drive?" Morgan asked as he got into the passenger's seat.

Grace chuckled.

"You didn't give me much choice," she remarked while turning the ignition key.

"Well, I was sure you'd say 'yes' because you're just so great to me," he replied with a smile.

Grace chuckled and rolled her eyes.

"Keep telling yourself that," she said while pulling back onto the main road.

Morgan rolled down his window and leaned an elbow out the window while staring out at the fields and forests beyond.

It was late September and he could not have asked for a more perfect day. The sky was blue, with a few puffy clouds drifting here and there. It was around 70 degrees out, which Morgan regarded as the perfect temperature. Today was perfect, no one way about it.

"Nice day out," he thought out loud.

Grace nodded.

"I hear ya. What are you up to later?"

"I think Jess and I will go to Nick and Kim's place for dinner."

"Well, that certainly sounds good. Is Kim making her chicken teriyaki tonight?"

"I think," he said with a nod. "You want me to ask Kim if you can make an appearance?"

"Oh, no, that's fine. I don't wanna intrude on your lovely couple's dinner."

Grace thought for a second.

"But… I would appreciate if you could get me a plate."

Morgan chuckled and nodded.

"I think I can arrange that."

At that moment, his phone vibrated in his pants pocket. Fishing it out, he saw the name _Jess_ followed by several hearts along with a bow and arrow emoji.

"Oh, hold up, Jess is calling," he announced before answering.

"What's up, babe?" Morgan greeted his girlfriend.

* * *

Jess Black smiled at the sound of Morgan Rook's voice.

She sat on a recliner in their humble Fall's End home. Both of her hands were occupied with pushing on her boots, so she had her phone sandwiched between her cheek and shoulder as she talked to Morgan.

"Hey, how are you doing?"

" _Well, I'm much better now._ "

Jess grinned as she felt her cheeks burn.

"I'm just going to go out hunting. Do you want me to bring back anything special?"

" _Nope, I got nothing in mind. You just go out and do your thing_."

"You fuckin' got it. Love you."

" _I love you too, Jess_."

* * *

Morgan ended the call and stuck his phone back into his pocket.

Grace was chuckling.

"What's so funny?" he inquired.

"Nothin'. Just that you're so damn cheesy. It's like I'm watching a teen rom-com."

"Oh, shut up and drive. It's not my problem you've chosen to to be spinster."

"Hey! You take that back. It ain't my fault most men are painfully mediocre and not worth my damn time."

"Okay, listen, Grace, your problem is-"

The truck shut off.

Both cops immediately stopped their conversation and looked around quizzically.

"What the hell? What'd you do?" Morgan asked her.

Grace shook her head.

"Nothing!"

"So this thing just shut off by itself?"

Grace turned the wheel and allowed the truck to coast to a stop on the shoulder of the road.

"Well, I certainly didn't do anything to it."

The suddenly powerless truck glided to a stop on the dirt. Morgan sighed heavily.

"Piece of shit," Grace mumbled. She turned the key one, twice, three times. The engine did not even turn over.

"Okay, I'll be the first to say this is really weird," Morgan said.

Grace opened the driver's side door and stepped out. Morgan opened his door and followed.

"We got this fucking thing checked last week," Grace said as she kicked a stone impatiently.

"I know. I know."

Morgan paused his movements and sniffed the air.

"Hey… you smell something… burning?"

Grace froze and took a deep breath.

"Uh, yeah. What is that?"

Morgan shrugged and walked over to the hood to the truck. He popped it open and was immediately greeted with a wave of acrid smoke wafting up from the engine.

"What the hell?" he cried between coughs while fanning away smoke.

Grace strode to his side and took a look at the engine. It appeared as if several components had melted and fused together. Whatever happened, their truck was not starting any time soon.

Both deputies looked at each other.

"You got any explanations? I got nothing," Grace said.

Morgan could just shrug.

"I- I don't know. I'm no mechanic."

"Well. We ain't moving, so maybe we should call someone."

"Yeah. Let me get on that," Morgan said as he drew his phone.

He pressed the home button, expecting the screen to light up as it usually did.

Nothing happened.

He pressed it again, same result. He took several moments to mash the home and lock buttons to get a reaction.

"Uh… I think something's wrong with my phone."

Grace turned on her feet and looked at him with an expression that showcased her disbelief.

"Are you being funny, Rook?"

"No! Try yours!"

Grace sighed and pulled out her own cell phone. Just as Morgan had, she found it would not come to life and impotently mashed every button on the phone, only to get no reaction.

"Mine's dead."

"This is impossible. I charged this shit an hour ago. I had over eighty percent battery left."

He ran both his hands through his hair in frustration.

"Alright. Our car's dead. Our phones are dead. We're in the middle of nowhere. Now what?"

When Grace did not reply, he turned to her. She was staring at something over his shoulder.

"Grace? Are you alright?"

Her eyes wide, Grace held up a single finger. Morgan turned and followed it.

There was a plane, a twin-engined airliner, about a mile or so away. It was spinning down to Earth, like a leaf falling to ground in mid-Autumn.

Morgan and Grace both stared, shocked beyond any words as the plane spun towards the ground. Morgan could only think a single thought, a seemingly random thought at that.

 _Why is it so damn quiet?_

His thought, as well as the silence of the Montana day, were broken when the plane slammed into an empty field and exploded in a massive fireball that threw flame, debris, and smoke hundreds of feet into the air. The shockwave of the explosion smashed through Morgan's chest. He felt his legs weaken.

Someone slammed a hand on his shoulder.

It was Grace.

"Rook!" she shouted.

He stared at her.

"Rook! Let's go! We need to see if anyone made it out!"

He blinked once and was back to the real world.

"Okay, yeah. Try the radio!"

She shook her head.

"No good, I already checked the truck and my personal one. We need to get there, even if we gotta walk."

He nodded once and decided it was time for action.

Grace reached into the truck and grabbed her kit and rifle. Morgan grabbed his own bag and retrieved the Remington shotgun sitting in its cradle behind the two seats.

Her bag and rifle slung over her shoulder, Grace was already jogging down the road.

"Let's go!" she called, waving a hand forward.

Morgan took off towards the crash site with her.

* * *

 ** _Earlier_**

 _25,000 feet above Montana_

Aboard a sleek, stark-white Gulfstream G450, Captain Jordan Beck eyed the GPS system before him. They had just crossed into Southern Montana and were behind schedule.

He sighed. He could already feel the passengers in the cabin growing antsy. Beck could only hope they would not take it out on Carolyn, the cabin attendant.

A former combat pilot of the U.S. Air Force, Beck would have taken dodging Soviet anti-air missiles over Iraq any day compared to his current job of ferrying rich, privileged assholes who could not be bothered to book a flight with poor people on it. Alas, Uncle Sam could not give him a paycheck that compared to the ones Executive Transport, Inc, gave him.

He heard obnoxious laughter emanate from the cabin. Rolling his eyes, he thought about the particular breed of rich assholes occupying his aircraft at the present time.

Rich Hubbard, a tycoon from Seattle who made his money on the telecom industry, or something, the bankroller of this little trip. His wife, Ellen, a dimwitted, painfully boring trophy wife who was indulging in plastic surgery at a relatively young age. Their two kids, fifteen-year-old Layton, who Beck could tell was already being molded into a quintessential high school douchebag, and seventeen-year-old Autumn. Beck did not have a rude thing to say about her. She was actually very kind and well-spoken, making her a virtual philosopher next to her family. Beck actually felt bad for her, having to share a lineage with those people.

Rich Hubbard had booked this flight because his equally wealthy father, living in Chicago, had died. Now, the Hubbard family was converging on Chicago for the funeral and to carve up his estate.

Maybe that was why Rich had taken not just his family on this expedition. He was also bringing his lawyer, an irascible woman named Irene, his bodyguard, a stoic and stocky Mike, and Rich's equally insufferable cousin Toby.

"How we looking?" his co-pilot, Ray Flores, spoke up, breaking him from his loathing.

"Good. Keep on this heading. Maybe descend down to fifteen-thousand in a few minutes."

Beck could hear Rich and Toby laughing heartily at some presumably crude joke. Toby was trying to convince Mike to drink some of the champagne they were getting buzzed off, but to no avail.

"I think Missoula control wants to talk to you," Ray said to Beck.

Nodding, Beck tapped the key for his radio and spoke.

"Missoula tower, this is Executive Transport Flight 650-"

At that moment, he had been idly staring at his instrument panel. The confusing jumble of lights, switches, and buttons would make most people's heads spin, but Beck was reassured by their lights, both flashing and solid. It meant his aircraft was still in the air.

Then, they went out.

It took a moment for him to register. Then, Beck noticed there was no static, no reply from his headset. Flores squinted over his own bank of instruments.

Beck doffed his headset and listened closely.

The characteristic rumbling of the plane's engines was missing. In their place was complete, utter silence.

And silence was the worst sound a pilot could hear.

Exhaling deeply, Beck nodded and dropped his headset.

"We've lost power," he stated matter-of-factly.

Flores shot a look at him, his eyes wide.

"We're a glider," Beck mumbled.

"Hey!" Rich called from his seat near the cockpit. "Our TVs went out! Is this supposed to happen?"

He heard the man rise from his seat and begin to walk towards the cabin. His meaty fist rapped on the armored door.

"Hey, can you hear me, captain?"

Flores was still staring at him. His co-pilot was trained, and trained well, but he had never in a million years expected this to happen. Planes just did not lose power thousands of feet above sea level.

"Captain!" Rich called.

Beck turned around, his mind catching up with him.

'Sir!" he shouted through the door. "Get back in your seat and tell everyone to fasten their seatbelts!"

"What? Why?"

"This plane has lost power and we need to attempt an emergency landing!"

For once, the man could not reply.

"Are you serious?" he asked meekly, as if a pilot would make something like that up.

"Yes, I am very, very fucking serious! Now sit down!"

Beck turned back to his controls, ignoring the cries and screaming coming from the cabin.

"Okay, Ray, I have a little play still in the flaps. This thing is gonna glide for some time. Hopefully, I can ease it just so we don't tail spin out. I'll find somewhere flat to set her down."

Flores was staring in shocked silence.

"Okay?" Beck said loudly.

"Yeah… okay."

Beck licked his lips and tightened his grip on the controls.

"Okay…"

* * *

Jess was barely outside of the house when it happened.

She hit the road out of town, shifting her bow and arrows on her back. Above her, the transformer of a power pylon suddenly exploded into a shower of sparks. Jess jumped at the sound and witnessed white sparks jumping out of the fried transformer.

"The fuck?" she muttered.

The cables snaking out of the pylon burst into flames. Flames shot up the length of the line, terminating only at the next pylon.

People were coming out of their homes and the Spread Eagle now, everyone taking a moment to gawk up at the sight they were seeing.

Jess jogged over to where Mary May Fairgrave had emerged from her place behind the bar counter.

"Jess!" she called.

Jess shook her head.

"The hell is this?"

Mary shrugged.

"I dunno."

Soon enough, the violent spectacle was over. A few power lines snapped, their trailing cables throwing out feeble sparks as they dangled.

"Well… I guess our power's out," Mary said.

"Look at you with the great observations," Jess said sarcastically.

"Ah, goddamn it!" Mitch Calhoun, owner of the general store, cursed.

"You okay?" Mary asked.

"Yeah, I'm fine, but my backup genny was getting fixed. I got no power and plenty of fresh meat and what not on display."

"I'll see if I can wrangle up something for you, okay?" Mary assured him.

"Thanks, mayor."

"Hey! Is anyone's phone working?" a townsperson asked anyone in earshot.

Mary and Jess both withdrew their own phones. To the surprise of both women, they would not respond to any input.

"I think my shit's dead," Jess said.

Mary nodded.

"Mine too."

"Okay… this is pretty fucking weird," Jess said quietly as she put her phone away.

The doors to the newly built Hope County Sheriff's Office were pushed opened. Earl Whitehorse, accompanied by a concerned looking Jenny the dispatcher, emerged.

Immediately, people began to bombard the sheriff with questions. He held up a single hand.

"Folks, I know as much as you do," Whitehorse said over the voices addressing him.

The crowd continued to chatter. Mary stepped forward to join the sheriff's side.

"Hey! All of you! Settle down and let's hear the sheriff!"

The townspeople obeyed.

Whitehorse nodded thanks at Mary.

"Right. It seems that we've all suffered a very large power failure. And yes, I know all our phones are dead. The radios in the station are dead, as are the laptops. Now, I want all of you to go back to your homes and make sure nothing's on fire. And see if anything still has any juice. We need to start figuring out just what the hell happened."

"Do you think something major happened?" a woman asked.

The sheriff could only rub his chin thoughtfully.

"I don't want to make any assumptions so quickly. Let's just get to the bottom of this and find what we can."

The assembled townspeople dispersed to set about their tasks. Whitehorse nodded to Jenny and they both headed back for the station. Mary and Jess were left alone in the street.

"So, Jess, got any ideas?"

Jess looked at her.

"How would I know?"

"You're our resident expert survivalist. Maybe you have a different perspective."

Jess contemplated it for a moment.

"Well…"

Mary hung on with anticipation.

Jess shook her head.

"Nah, forget it. It's kinda out there."

"No! Let me hear it!"

Jess shook her head again, more firmly this time.

"I'll tell you later. Come on. I'll help you check out the bar."

* * *

Morgan followed Grace as she bounded over a barbed wire fence that enclosed an open ranch where the plane had come down. He was breathing heavily, having carried all his gear over nearly a mile to reach the location. However, the adrenaline was freely pumping through his veins.

The wreck of the aircraft was consumed in a massive conflagration. Morgan could barely make out the skeleton of the fuselage under the smoke and fire. The heat being thrown off was enough to make him sweat, even several yards away.

He turned and saw Grace talking to a young man, who he assumed had arrived on the scene first. Morgan jogged over to join them.

"Morgan, this is mister Lucas White. He was first on the scene," Grace introduced.

"Mister White, do you own this ranch?" Morgan inquired.

Lucas shook his head.

"No, sir, I'm just a hand. The owner is mister Brockton. He and his wife went away for vacation, though, so I've been watching the place."

Lucas gestured at the crash site.

"Officers, I'm telling you, I didn't see no one come out of the crash!"

Grace solemnly shook her head.

"No one could have survived that," she mumbled.

Morgan nodded in agreement.

"Okay, did you call the fire department?" Morgan asked Lucas.

"Uh, no, my phone is broken."

"Broken? What do you mean broken?" Grace said.

Lucas just shrugged.

"I really don't know. It just won't work. Won't turn on. Nothing."

The two cops looked at each other.

"What about landlines?" Morgan inquired.

"Those are dead too. They're battery powered, but they're dead. So is everything in the house. The TV, fridge- everything. It's like we had a power failure."

"Did you try your car?" Grace asked.

"I did. Tried to get help. Wouldn't start."

They looked at each other once more.

"Wait, what's going on?" Lucas said warily.

"We were driving about a mile up the road. Our truck just died on us," Morgan explained.

"Speaking of, we need to get back to Fall's End. Is there any sort of transportation you can loan us?" Grace asked.

Lucas rubbed his chin in thought.

"Well… oh, wait! Horses. You can take two horses. I'm sure mister Brockton wouldn't mind."

Morgan smiled.

"Appreciate that."

"What about this?" Lucas asked, nodding at the plane crash.

"I don't know if the fire department can make it out here," Grace said.

Morgan nodded in agreement.

"Yeah. I guess… just let it burn. We'll deal with it after. The fire doesn't seem to be spreading. The ground is too bare."

Lucas looked at the inferno with concern.

"Uh, okay. If you say so. Come on, I'll set up some horses for you."

* * *

"Well… shit," Mary angrily mumbled.

Jess tried to give her a sympathetic look as she turned the key to her Ford F-150 truck a fourth time.

"I think it's time we admit defeat," Jess suggested.

Mary sighed and slammed a fist on the dashboard.

"I bought this fuckin' thing a year ago. And now it died on me?"

"I don't think this is a problem with your truck. I mean, almost everyone in town is saying the same thing. Their shit is DOA."

Mary pushed herself out of the driver's seat and walked around to Jess. She tapped her chin in thought.

"Well, one of Harry's quads is working just fine. And Tara's dirt bike works too."

"Don't forget that guy Oliver with the beater station wagon that sounds like a dying squirrel if it goes over twenty. That piece of shit is working just fine," Jess said.

Mary chuckled humorlessly.

"Can't believe it. The only cars that are running are antiques or junkyard rejects."

The two women walked back to the Spread Eagle, where the rest of the town was convening. The newly built town meeting hall was the official place for meetings, but the town watering hole remained the favorite unofficial location.

"Morgan's truck is dead too, right?" Mary asked Jess.

"Morgan has the keys, so I don't know. I'd imagine, though."

Mary excused herself and joined Sheriff Whitehorse at the head of the crowd, who had returned from their tasks. Jess fell in line with the group .

After a few minutes of conversing, it was clear that the situation was not looking good. Every building in town had lost power. A few were running off of whole house generators or single, gas powered generators. It seemed that just about every vehicle and electronic device in town was rendered unusable. Digital items like televisions, phones, game consoles, and laptops were complete write-offs, even if the item was not plugged in anywhere.

Simpler electronics were usable. Flashlights and electric lanterns had survived, as did most simple battery powered items like radios. A few people reported that chainsaws and lawnmowers still functioned, however useful the latter might be.

Vehicles from the 2010s and 2000s were rendered unusable. Some people were starting to walk into town, having reported that their cars simply stopped working in the middle of a drive. It seemed that the only vehicles that still functioned were vehicles manufactured before the 1980s, as well as motorbikes, ATVs, quads, scooters, and others that used simple gasoline engines.

At this point, the people of Fall's End were becoming increasingly worried. The sheriff and Mary were both being bombarded with questions they could not answer.

Most of them were very concerned with what exactly happened that could cause this sort of thing. It was clear some sort of event had occurred, but it was not sure exactly _what_ that could have been.

"I got a ton of game in my freezer. I don't want that to all spoil!" Martin Blackwood, a local hunter, said.

Many others shouted their agreement with him.

"I checked the ice chests in the bar and they seem okay. I have a backup genny I can run a few hours a day to keep everything cool. But I don't have a ton of space," Mary replied.

"Sheriff, have you heard from the other officers?" Amelia Klein addressed Whitehorse.

The older man shook his head.

"All of our usual communications gear is down for the count. I can only hope they're all making their way here."

Jess felt a slight knot of worry in her stomach. Morgan. He was alright, she hoped.

"Have you heard any news from anything?" another townsperson from the back asked.

The sheriff shook his head once more.

"We have a few older radios in storage that we hope will work. In a little bit, we'll start scanning the airwaves for anything at all."

"What do we do now?" someone else inquired.

Whitehorse sighed softly.

"We wait."

* * *

Morgan and Grace headed down the road, side-by-side atop their borrowed horses. Morgan had received a golden coated female with a white face, while Grace rode a black dapple male.

"When's the last time you went horseback riding, Rook?" Grace asked as they kicked both their horses into a faster trot.

He laughed.

"Oh, man, uh… five years ago?"

"Well, you seem to be doing fine."

"It's like riding a bike. Except the bike weighs five hundred pounds and is a living creature that can easily kill you if it wants."

She chuckled.

"What do you think happened?" Grace asked a moment later

"What? With all of this? Beats me."

"Me too. I won't lie- I'm a little freaked out. Don't know what could cause a car to just stop and a plane to fall out of the sky."

Morgan held up a hand.

"Whoa. I hear something."

Grace bought her horse to a halt.

It was an engine. Soon, the two deputies saw a pickup truck crest over a low hill. It was driving down the road in their direction. Morgan and Grace kicked their horses to meet the driver.

"Hey, how are you?" Morgan asked once the driver slowed down.

The driver was a middle-aged man, dressed in a camo hunting jacket. Morgan did not recognize him and saw a large amount of boxes in the bed of the truck.

"Hello, officers. Everything okay?"

"Yeah, we're good. Is there any reason why your truck is running?" Grace asked.

"Beats me. She just started up no problem."

"That's interesting… what kind of truck is this?" Morgan inquired.

"A 1970 Chevy C10."

The man anxiously looked out to the road.

"Uh, is it okay if I get going? I have to go check my caches."

"Do you think something happened?" Grace said.

He nodded, showing uncertainty.

"Yes… I think so."

"Okay, thanks for your time."

The cops watched as he put his truck in gear and took off.

"That's interesting," Morgan observed.

"You're telling me."

"Come on," Grace called as she began to spur her horse, "we can wonder about this later. Let's get back to town."

* * *

Jess watched as the ancient radio unit Deputy Staci Pratt had dug out of storage was placed on the bar counter. Whitehorse pulled up a stool and took a seat as the residents of Fall's End crowded around him with mute suspense.

He picked up the microphone and slowly began to scan across the channels. Turning the dial, the listeners heard only static and interference at first, but Whitehorse quickly found the sound of a distant voice. Tuning more precisely, the ghostly whispering became more clear. A monotone male voice began to fill the room.

" _We interrupt this program at the request of the White House. This is not a test. This is the Emergency Alert System. Please stay tuned for important information. An unknown enemy has attacked the United States. Two nuclear weapons were detonated high in the atmosphere, producing an electromagnetic pulse. There is no threat from thermal or radiation damage, but electrical services and utilities will be unavailable for the foreseeable future. Please ration your resources and comply with all instructions given by local authorities. Further updates will be broadcasted on this channel. Again, this is not a test. This message will repeat._ "

There was complete, utter stunned silence from the assembled crowd. Whitehorse slowly put down the microphone and rubbed his mustache.

Someone finally spoke up after what seemed like an eternity.

"Okay, what the fuck is an electromagnetic whatever? Is that why we got no power? Why our cars and phones are dead?"

"Yeah, it is," Jess said.

Everyone turned to face her, like they just realized she was there.

"Jess," Mary began, "you know what's going on?"

She nodded once.

"I had an idea, but I didn't want to start going around and saying shit that would get everyone all scared. Yeah, it's an EMP. Electromagnetic pulse. My granny told me about them back when I was living with her. They get created when the Sun releases large amounts of particles or whatever. They also get released when a nuke is detonated."

The mention of nuclear weapons certainly did not alleviate fears.

People began shouting over one another until Mary whistled loudly.

"Hey! It's like the radio said- there's not threat from fallout or whatever."

"But who the hell nuked us?" Mitch Calhoun said.

This started a new round of theories, full of the names China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran.

"Hold on, let's all calm down," Whitehorse called over the din, "we have nothing official and it's not doing anyone any favors to be throwing around whatever conspiracy theory you can cook up."

The crowd begrudgingly fell silent.

"So, when's the power coming back on?" asked Sarah Powers, a bank employee.

"It sounded like indefinitely," someone said back to her.

"But, it _has_ to come back on, right?" Sarah said worriedly.

Jess stepped up, making herself the center of attention for once in her life.

"Look, the EMP, if that's what happened, has completely fried the power grid and anything more complex than a battery powered flashlight. That shit is _gone_. It's gonna be gone until we can get replacements."

"And how long will that take?" someone asked.

Jess shrugged.

"No fucking idea. Years?"

" _Years?_ "

"Holy shit."

"We're gonna have no power, no nothing for years?!"

"Alright, everyone, calm down!" Whitehorse shouted.

"Are you all forgetting the war we fought and _won_ just a few months ago? And you're all scared of a little power failure?" he went on.

"You are all forgetting where you're living. This is Hope County. We're used to being on our own. No matter how long this lasts, we'll make it through. We survived Joseph fucking Seed and his army of murderers and madmen. This EMP or whatever? We'll beat this too," Mary assured her residents.

The crowd was silent. Several people were nodding in agreement.

"So, what's the plan, sheriff?" a resident addressed Whitehorse.

"We wait for the rest of my deputies to get back here. I'd imagine they've all been stranded around the county and are doing everything they can to get back to town. In the meantime, I want all of you to take inventory of all your supplies. Any perishable food, bring it here and we'll see if we can fit it in the bar's freezers. Is that okay with you, Mary?"

Mary nodded once.

"Perfectly fine."

Most of the residents departed the Spread Eagle, chatting amongst themselves. Whitehorse took a seat in front of the ancient radio and began scanning the airwaves once more. Jess and Mary joined him. After a few minutes of browsing through interference, the sheriff settled on a channel comprised of short electronic beeps.

"What's that?" Mary asked.

"Morse code," Jess replied.

"That's Morse code alright," Whitehorse said, "being transmitted by someone who wants to go very low tech or who doesn't want to be listened in on."

Since no one was interested in translating the Morse, Whitehorse resumed his searching of the airwaves. Finally, a real human voice was found. Through the static, the three listeners could make out a Southern drawl.

" _This is Kilo-Beta Five Charlie-Romeo-Echo, calling anyone, over_."

Whitehorse picked up the mic and keyed it.

"Kilo-Beta Five, this is sheriff Earl Whitehorse of Hope County, Montana. We're reading you, over."

After a brief pause, Kilo-Beta Five replied.

" _Howdy, sheriff. This is Beau Simmons of Tyler, Texas_. _How are you folks doing, over?_ "

"We're doing okay, mister Simmons. How is everything in Texas? Do you have power down there, over?"

" _That's a negative, sheriff. Power went out about an hour and half ago. I saw a plane fall out of the sky. The emergency broadcast system said it was the byproduct of two high-altitude nuclear detonations. An actual goddamn EMP. Over._ "

"We heard the same thing. Grid's down. Most vehicles ain't running. Over."

" _Same story here. I've been ready for this, though, as ready as I can be. I got a '69 Ford that's running like a beauty. Gonna pick up my wife from work, get my kids from school, and link up with some of my boys. We got a bug-out location all set. You folks are up in Montana, so I got no doubts y'all are ready for this, over._ "

"We can make do. We've been through much worse. I'll let you get going. Good luck to you, sir."

" _Thank you, sheriff. God be with you and the people of your county._ "

They let the Texan prepper disappear into static.

"So," Mary began, "what do you think we should be doing, sheriff? What is the plan?"

"I'm thinking we should take stock of all the food and medicine we have on hand at this very moment. Then we take inventory of livestock and crops. I don't think we'll be getting any deliveries anytime soon. Once everyone gets back here, we'll talk about drawing up a system for rationing resources. I think we can work something out."

Mary nodded thoughtfully.

"Alright. Jess, what do you think?"

Jess looked at her oddly.

"What do you care what I think?"

"You're my friend. I want to know."

Jess shrugged.

"Uh, sounds fine I guess. I can always feed myself."

"It looks like hunting will be in your future," Mary said with a small smile.

Jess smirked back. That was not such a bad deal.

* * *

The first thing Beck smelled was jet fuel. That was usually a bad sign, but considering he was not smelling it in conjunction with smoke was a pretty good start.

His head throbbed in pain. His body ached. With a groan, Beck picked himself up from where his head had slammed into the control bank. He rubbed his forehead and felt slick blood on his fingers.

"Hey…" he mumbled to Flores.

His first officer did not respond.

"Hey, Ray, are you okay, brother?"

Beck slowly turned his head and saw Flores was in the seat next to him. A massive tree branch had slammed through the cockpit window and impaled through his co-pilot's face. The spiked barb of the broken branch took up most of his face. Blood steadily dripped down from where his face once was and stained his white shirt a deep crimson.

"Oh, fuck, Ray," Beck mumbled, reaching out before pausing.

There was no point. He was dead, no one way about it. Even if the firefighters and medics were right on the scene the moment they landed, there would nothing they could have done.

Beck decided to worry about himself his passengers, if any were still alive.

Beck had never had to deal with a situation like this. He had never had to land his massive jet like it was a flimsy glider. He remembered how he had managed to guide the crippled jet with what little power he had over the flaps and elevators. Beck had aimed for a field bordering a dense forest. It was the flattest surface he could find. The landing itself disappeared into a violent memory of noise and debris.

The fact they were not scattered into a million pieces over the Montana farmland was a good sign. He had managed to land the plane intact. Maybe.

Beck unsteadily got up from his seat, steadying himself on the various instruments and walls. He limped over to the armored cockpit door and unlocked it.

The plane's fuselage was indeed intact. A portion of it was missing, sheared off during landing. He saw Toby slumped in a corner, blood pouring out of his nose and mouth. Beck briefly checked and did not detect him breathing. Irene was thrown towards the back of the plane, her body contorted in an unnatural manner. Broken neck, amongst other things.

Beck saw that the main door had been opened. The passengers had managed to evacuate themselves. He hoped they had not gone far. They would not know what to do in this event.

He paused at a locked cabinet, which he unlocked using a personal key. Inside was a strongbox which contained a few essential supplies- a flare pistol, flare shells, a fixed-blade knife, a first aid kit, compass, whistle, and some fire starting supplies.

Beck groaned as he moved for the exit, clutching what felt like a bruise at his side. At least he hoped it was just a nasty bruise and not a broken rib.

Beck almost stumbled onto his face as he exited the broken aircraft.

"Hey! It's the pilot!"

He looked up and saw Autumn sprinting away from the other survivors, who were sitting on a knoll nearby.

"Sir? Sir, are you okay?" Autumn asked. The girl looked okay, save for a few scrapes and cuts across her face.

"Hey, miss. I'm okay."

"Captain, are you okay?" Carolyn the flight attendant asked when she reached him.

"I'm okay, miss McLane."

"And the first officer?"

Beck could only sigh and shake his head once.

Carolyn pursed her lips and gave a sympathetic nod.

"Right. It looks like just us, the Hubbard family, and their security guide made it."

"Captain!" Rich called as he walked over.

"Yes, sir?"

"What the hell happened? Where are we?"

Beck glanced around. They had come down in total farm country. He could not see a building in the area or a single car on the road several yards away.

"Montana. We lost power and landed somewhere in southern Montana. Don't ask me how, but we did."

Rich scoffed.

"Planes don't just lose power for no reason."

"You're right. They don't. Distress transponder should have activated the moment of impact. If not, we should try calling for emergency services."

"We already tried," Autumn explained, "most of our phones got destroyed in the crash. I had mine on me, but I think it's broken. It won't turn on or anything."

Beck looked over the group.

"Is this true for everyone?"

Everyone nodded or affirmed.

He reached into his own pocket for his cell phone. The screen was cracked, as was to be expected, but it still looked functional. Pressing every button present on his phone did nothing, however.

"Okay. Phones are indeed dead. Is anyone seriously injured, I mean like, can't walk or anything?"

"They're all good," Mike the bodyguard said.

"You checked them over?"

The massive man nodded.

"Indeed I did. We can all walk just fine."

"Thanks, I appreciate that."

"So, what do we do now?" Autumn asked.

Beck looked out to the horizon. He noticed just how quiet it seemed. Sure, it would probably be expected in this part of the country, but something was nagging at him. It was way too quiet.

"I guess we wait."

* * *

After what must have been two hours, the survivors were getting restless.

Beck did not blame them. Something was very off. Someone should have come cross the crash site by now. Rescuers should have been on the scene over an hour ago. But, it seemed like they were completely alone.

"We have to do something! We can't just sit here!" Ellen cried out.

"Ma'am, please, we need to stay put and wait for help. We're not in the middle of the Amazon Rainforest here. We're in a US state," Mike tried to reason.

"Look, Mike, my family is scared. We're lost. We should try to find help. Because I don't think it's coming," Rich said.

"Captain, what do you think we should do?" Autumn inquired to Beck.

He rose from his own spot, his body still aching.

"Maybe something is wrong. No one's come yet and they should've by now. I say we try to get our bearings. Try to see if we can find anything or anyone."

"That sounds good to me," Rich said with an agreeable nod.

"Alright, let me go see if I can find a road sign, street name, something," Beck said while he walked over to the road nearby.

It was a standard rural road. One with two lanes that obviously saw little use. He walked it for a few minutes, confirming his suspicions they had went down somewhere in the boondocks.

A small, green road sign was posted as the side of the road, one he had overlooked earlier. Approaching it, he saw that there was some legible white text printed on it.

"Hey, everyone, over here!" he called out.

The survivors assembled around him.

"Now, I don't know where we are… but we should head down this road. Reach this place. It's a bit of a hike… but it's better than nothing. Maybe we'll find something along the way, too."

They examined the sign he was pointing at.

"Twelve miles? Are we supposed to walk that or something?" Layton whined. The kid looked lost without his iPad to play Fortnite on.

"Looks like it," Autumn replied.

"Glad I bought my sneakers," Carolyn muttered.

Beck loosened the black tie he wore as part of his uniform and stuffed it in his pocket. Unbuttoning the top button of his collar, he began to walk forward.

"Let's get going then. Twelve miles ain't no walk in the park."

The rest fell in behind him. Beck was wearing only his black dress shoes and hoped they would find some help before his feet gave out.

"Where the hell is this place anyway?" Carolyn wondered aloud as she walked next to Beck.

The pilot shrugged in reply.

"Beats me. I've only flown over Montana."

The blonde flight attendant smiled weakly.

"Hope County. Sounds nice enough, I guess."


	2. Chapter 2

Despite the context of it, Morgan was quite enjoying his ride through the Hope County backroads. The late summer sun warmed his face, but the soft breeze kept him cool as he rode next to Grace.

"I should take up horseback riding," Morgan vocalized his thoughts to Grace.

She laughed.

"If you have enough space to stick a horse in your backyard, go for it."

His horse threw her head, slightly agitated by something.

"Whoa!" Morgan said, patting his horse's neck.

"Calm down there, girl!"

He became aware of the source of her agitation. From his place in the saddle, Morgan could feel the vibrations of a powerful motor. The vibrations became accompanied by sounds soon enough.

Morgan and Grace pulled their horses to a halt as a Blackhawk helicopter flew overhead, barely two hundred feet off the ground. The powerful rotors shook the greenery around them, while the thumping of the engines drowned out the horses' spooked nickering. The violently loud noise of the chopper seemed so out of the place given the silence that had fallen over the county.

The deputies watched the helicopter recede as it banked left and headed west.

"What was that all about?" Morgan asked.

Grace shrugged.

"Could be a sign," Morgan hypothesized.

"Of what?"

"Something major went down. Planes falling out of the sky and everyone and everything losing power isn't a sign that everything is just fine."

"Makes sense to me."

After a few more minutes of silent riding and no further helicopters, Morgan and Grace rejoined the main road, the road that would eventually turn into Fall's End's Main Street.

"Finally. I keep forgetting how big this county actually is," Morgan commented over the sound of horseshoes on pavement.

He resumed enjoying the sunny day. A few minutes later, Morgan looked up at the canopy of the nearby trees. A flight of birds flew south in formation. Beyond that, he saw something rising into the air. A stream of smoke trailed behind it.

"Hey, what the hell is that?" he said, pointing skyward.

Grace followed his finger to the object. She paused and slowly raised a hand to cover her open mouth.

"Oh my God," she mumbled.

"What?" Morgan asked.

A second object rose into the sky, its smoke trail following close behind. A third headed skyward.

"What is it?" Morgan asked again.

"Those are fucking ICBMs, Rook. Minuteman-Threes."

"ICBMs? Like, nukes?"

"Yes, like fucking _nukes_!"

"Holy shit," Morgan said, rubbing his chin.

"Come on- let's get back to town," Grace said, whipping the reins to her horse and breaking into a gallop. Morgan kicked his horse's sides and took off after her.

* * *

Jess watched as the weathered 1984 Chevrolet Blazer rolled into the parking lot of the Spread Eagle. As the driver cut the engine, Holland Valley farm owner Edgar Reid stepped out, followed by his wife and two farmhands.

She watched as they speedwalked to the Fall's End meeting hall. Whitehorse had managed to get on the radio with people from across the county, instructing them to rally in Fall's End to discuss what to do next. Thankfully, the survival-minded residents of Hope County had enough EMP-proof radios between them to get the word out. The amount of people arriving was quickly exceeding the capacity of the Spread Eagle, so people were told to migrate over to the official town meeting hall.

Most were arriving on horseback or four-wheelers. A few arrived on bikes, both muscle-powered and gasoline powered. There were a few working cars here and there, all of them manufactured before 1989. A few of the cops were showing up now, but Morgan and Grace had failed to arrive.

"I've never seen this many people in town," Mary commented. She and Jess were carrying over some lemonade and cookies for refreshment. Maybe a little sugar would be what everyone needed at the present moment.

"Yeah, me neither. It's kinda weird."

Mary chuckled.

"I imagine this is getting a bit too crowded for you?"

"Definitely. Trying my best to not run off and hide in the woods for the time being."

The two women pushed open the double doors to the meeting hall. All the chairs had been taken and those still arriving were taking up standing room around the back and sides. There was loud, indistinct chatter between all present, no doubt swapping theories or discussing what they thought should happen next.

Whitehorse was still in the sheriff's office, working on getting the word out. He would address the people of the county once the entire sheriff's department arrived. People were becoming more and more restless with every passing minute.

Back outside, Mary and Jess heard the distinctive sound of horseshoes on pavement. They looked to see a pair of horses trotting down Main Street, Morgan and Grace atop them.

"Morgan!" Jess called, running over to him.

The two cops bought their steeds to a halt. Morgan dismounted and ran to meet Jess. They met with a hug in the middle of the street.

"Holy shit- are you okay?" Jess asked into his shoulder.

"I'm fine! Are you okay?" he responded.

"Yeah, yeah, all good. What happened?"

"Our truck lost power. There was a plane crash and… oh, god, Jess. What the fuck happened?"

Grace dismounted her own horse and took the reins of both animals.

"All good here, Mary?" Grace asked.

She nodded.

"Good so far," Mary said tentatively, "the sheriff wants to have a meeting once everyone gets here. You should let him know your back."

"Rook, I'll get these horses tied up and let the sheriff know we're back. You go and check that everything's good at your place, okay?" Grace told Morgan.

He nodded to her once.

"Appreciate that."

Morgan and Jess took a quick walk to their house.

"I checked already. Everything's dead."

"Even the…?"

"Even the PlayStation. And your laptop. And the TV…"

"Goddammit…"

"I moved all the meat in the fridge to Mary's place. She's got a generator."

"Thanks, Jess… what happened? Why did this all happen?"

"Look, I'll explain it clearly to everyone when we all meet. Do you have your keys on you?"

Morgan reached into his pocket and fished out his car keys with a jangle.

"Do you want me to check the cars?" he inquired.

"Yeah. See if we got anything running."

As Jess had imagined, the Ford Raptor Morgan had rescued months earlier from a sealed garage was dead.

"Well, shit," he mumbled as he slammed the door behind him.

"Guess we try…" Jess started, looking over at Morgan's pride and joy- the cherry red 1970 Pontiac Firebird he had acquired from a classic car collector's garage.

Morgan looked at the car, distraught.

"Please don't be dead…" Morgan muttered as he gently opened the door and slipped into the driver's seat.

He inserted the key and turned it. After a second or two, the V8 engine roared to life. Morgan laughed and patted the dashboard.

"That's my girl!"

Jess chuckled and rolled her eyes.

"Oh, your shitbox works. That's _great_ news."

"Come on, don't be like that!" he whined to her.

"Whatever. Alright, let's head over and see what the sheriff's plan is."

* * *

The interior of the town meeting hall was a cacophony of disorganized talking and shouting. People were sitting, standing, leaning on walls, and generally occupying all available space as they talked loudly among themselves. No doubt exchanging theories or talking about what exactly they would be doing.

Morgan separated himself from Jess and took his spot up on the stage, where the sheriff was impatiently tapping the sides of the podium before him.

"Sheriff," Morgan greeted, "everyone here?"

"Looks like it. You get here okay?"

"Uh… yeah, relatively. I'll talk about it more later."

Grace pushed open the doors to the hall and immediately made her way to Whitehorse, obviously with something on her mind.

"Sheriff!"

"Everything okay, Grace?" Whitehorse asked, turning to her.

Grace sighed and looked around her before leaning in.

"Me and Rook… when we were riding into town, we saw nukes. Our nukes, probably being launched from Malmstrom AFB to the east of us."

Whitehorse blinked twice. Morgan knew the man was the kind who kept his cool, even when bullets were flying over his head. This news caused Whitehorse's face to briefly flicker with fear, but he kept it under control.

Instead, Whitehorse thoughtfully rubbed his mustache and slowly shook his head.

"Shit," he mumbled, in something of an understatement.

"Did the radio say anything about this?" Morgan asked him.

"No. Nothing 'bout sending goddamn nuclear bombs off to who-knows-where."

"What do we do, sheriff?" Grace inquired.

"We keep this to ourselves," he said after a moment, "got enough folk panicked as is. Don't need news of total atomic war to add to it."

The two deputies nodded and stepped forward behind Whitehorse, who shouted over the crowd.

"Hey! Everyone! Let's settle down!" Whitehorse's voice boomed over the crowd.

The assembled townsfolk and their conversions both settled down.

Once the final murmurs dissipated, Whitehorse cleared his throat and began to speak.

"Alright then. I want to thank you all for taking the time to come and listen to what the plan is. First, let me begin by stating the obvious. Something major has happened. Something that will certainly not blow over tomorrow, or the next week, or the next month, and not even the next _year_."

Several people turned to their neighbors and whispered uneasily among themselves.

Whitehorse gave them a moment and continued.

"Now, some of you have heard the radio announcement, some of you have not. According to the emergency broadcasts, we have been hit with an electromagnetic pulse- an EMP. Does anyone know what that is?"

The room erupted into low conversation as a handful of people tentatively raised their hands.

"I figured. Before I go on, I think it's important to explain what exactly happened and how it's affecting us. I'll ask someone with more knowledge on this than me to take over. Miss Black?"

Morgan watched with surprise as Jess stood up from her seat and walked up to the podium Whitehorse yielded to her. She took her place and nervously scanned the sizable audience before her, who were eagerly anticipating what she had to say.

"Uh, hi. I'm Jess. Most of you in town know me… and if you don't live in town, I guess, uh, yeah… okay, not important. Anyway… EMP. Electromagnetic pulse, all that shit. It's the byproduct of a nuclear detonation high in the atmosphere. Whoever did this didn't want to flatten cites or anything like that, but they wanted to do something more. The radio said two nuclear weapons were detonated above the country. This produced a large wave of highly charged particles, okay? And these electromagnetic particles essentially overloaded and destroyed… just about everything. Like a power surge on a much larger level, essentially. From your phone, your TV, most cars, to the entire fucking power grid. And the stuff that was destroyed- it's gone until we get replacements. Which will be who-knows-when."

"Wait!" a man spoke up. "Why are the cars dead? Most of them anyway."

"Most cars manufactured after the late 80s use fuel injection, which relies on a computer to function. If that goes… your car's fucked."

"But not every car is dead?"

"Yeah. Cars with carburetors don't need the computer. So, they're not affected. Same goes for things like motorcycles, ATVs, quads, you know, things like that."

"And what about all the other stuff that still works?" a woman said from the crowd.

Jess shrugged.

"Well, simple electronics like flashlights or battery-powered radios won't be affected. Anything more complicated than that, yeah, no luck."

"Sarah, do you have a question?" Whitehorse said to one of the crowd, who was furiously waving her hand.

"Uh, yeah. What exactly is the threat here?"

Jess nodded once.

"Okay. Food, fuel, medicine- we all know it doesn't grow on trees. It needs to be shipped in from around the country, for the most part. The EMP has taken out everything needed to keep our society running. Factories can't make anything new and there's no trucks or planes to get everything where it needs to be. Basically, our biggest threat will be shortage of food, medicine, spare parts, fuel, shit man, just about _everything_."

The crowd was quiet, as if the weight of what was at hand finally began to set in.

Jess looked back at Whitehorse expectantly.

"Well, that's all I got."

She quickly stepped down and the sheriff took his place.

"Thank you, Miss Black. Now, I've spoken to farm owners and business owners around the county and consulted with Mayor Fairgrave. We have a plan in place. This is how we see it- right now, the whole country is dealing with this and the shit will really be hitting the fan soon. The true scale of what's happened will reveal itself in time, but we have time before it all falls to shit. It's September and there's still time to harvest. The farms don't have to export food any more, so we're going to try to gather up every ear of corn, every stalk of grain we can before it gets too cold to farm. Most farm vehicles have survived intact, so we got that going for us. I've spoken to most of the gas station owners and they've agreed to help us ration out fuel. Most of the fuel will be reserved for the tractors and combines and we're still figuring out how much fuel we can allocate for personal vehicles. If you have a working vehicle, I am asking you to try to use it only for emergencies if you can help it. If you got a horse, use that. You got a bike, use that. You got two legs, use those."

More than a few voices erupted in protest.

"Sheriff! You can't just cut off fuel like that! I- I got things I need to do, and I need my truck running for that!" one resident shouted, standing up in anger.

Mary pushed aside Whitehorse and took her place at the podium.

"Now, let's just quiet down for a second here!" Mary chided, her voice reaching over the entire crowd. Morgan was impressed at the relatively small woman's ability to project herself over a rambunctious crowd.

The shouting petered out, partly because of the immense respect everyone in the room had for her.

"I don't like this any more than you do. I don't want to prevent any of you from getting what you need. But, we need to look at the facts. This EMP or whatever it was means that the entire country has been affected and is in the same boat we are. Fuel won't be coming over the mountains and we need to use what we have to keep our food supplies up. I'm not about to let anyone in this county starve. Now, can we let the sheriff talk about what he has in mind? You know we wouldn't be doing this to all of you if we didn't feel it was a big deal."

Mary turned to Whitehorse and nodded, yielding the podium to him.

"Thank you, mayor, I appreciate that. Anyway, we have no idea when power will be restored and when supplies from outside will come back into the county. Take inventory of what you have and ration it accordingly. If anyone has food they can donate, please, I ask you from the bottom of my heart to donate it to Mary at the Spread Eagle. We'll distribute it to anyone who needs it. Other than that, I trust each and everyone in this room has more survival-mindfulness than most in this nation. We'll keep an ear open for any news that comes over the radio. You know our radio channel. Give us a call if you need anything. Mayor, would like to say some words?"

Mary nodded once and took up a position at the podium. She licked her lips, some degree of concern on her face given the situation. But, she quickly pushed it away.

"I can feel that things will be tough. But we're Hope County- no strangers to hardship. Just about a year ago, we fought and won a war against Eden's Gate. I'm sure none of you can forget that. We didn't have everything we needed back then. We made do and got through it. This disaster, this event, this attack, this whatever the hell it is, won't break us. That being said, please, help your neighbors. We're all in this together. We fought together during the war against the cult and that was a hell of a time. How bad could this be, right?"

Mary concluded her speech with a small smile to reassure those gathered. Several people nodded and muttered their agreement.

"Okay, folks, that's it for now. Head back home and prepare what you need," Whitehorse announced. People began to rise from their seats, the sound of conversation and shuffling chairs filling the room.

Morgan watched as people began to shuffle out, taking their conversations with them. When they had vacated, he turned to look at Whitehorse, who was leaning over the podium, eyes downcast.

"Sheriff," he began, "you good?"

Whitehorse sighed heavily and rose.

"Good enough. I won't lie Rook, I don't know how things will go down."

"You worried, sheriff? I think we can make it through this. After all, if we can beat Seed, we can beat whatever the hell this is," Grace spoke up confidently.

He gave a small smile and nod in reply.

"Well, let's get to work then. Rook, Hudson, I want you two with me in town. Grace, Pratt, take everyone else and head out to that list of locations I gave you. Need to make sure everyone is on board with what's going on. Rustle up some transport- horses, bikes, cars, whatever. Make sure you give it back when you're done."

Whitehorse reached into his pocket and fished out a set of keys.

"Pratt!"

The young man turned on his heels.

"Yeah?"

He tossed his keys to Pratt.

"One of those keys opens the garage at my house. There should be something there you can use. You can drive stick, right?"

Pratt grinned.

"I sure can."

Inspired, Morgan caught Grace's arm before she could leave.

"Hey," he said, reaching for his own keys, "take my Firebird. It runs fine- just don't break it. Please?"

Grace smiled and took his keys.

"Thanks, Morgan. I'll try not to lose it."

He heard Jess chuckle over his shoulder as Grace departed.

Morgan turned to see Jess with her arms crossed, looking quite amused.

"You're actually letting someone else drive that thing?"

He smirked in reply.

"Desperate times."

"Okay," Whitehorse interrupted, placing his Stetson on his head, "let's get moving and get things organized around here."

Jess leaned up and gave Morgan a quick kiss on the lips.

"Go do your thing. I'll get everything ready at home."

With that, Morgan followed Hudson and Whitehorse out into the rapidly-darkening streets of Fall's End.

* * *

Jess watched Boomer's torso expand and contract. The loyal Blue Heeler was curled up on his bed, fast asleep. She was feeling quite jealous of the dog, who was acutely unaware of how life was going to be changing in the next few days. He would be fine, as long as he was able to eat everyday at the usual time. Jess, of course, would try her hardest to make sure that happened.

It was nighttime, the first night of what she imagined would be many powerless nights. She lit up her and Morgan's quaint Fall's End home with several candles. The flickering flames cast several shadows that danced around the living room. It would have been quite romantic in any other circumstance.

Jess looked at her watch, which had survived the EMP on the virtue of being a small, uncomplicated device. It was almost two in the morning. Morgan was still out doing what had to be done. Fall's End was usually dead quiet an hour before this time, but there was still much activity going on. Outside, she had heard much activity. People were coming and going, vehicles and horses flowing in and out of town.

All those preppers around the county were probably freaking out over all this. Jess was concerned, but she trusted her abilities. She would keep herself, Morgan, Boomer, and her friends fed. No doubt about that.

Jess was lying on the sofa, hand behind her head and eyes staring at the shadows fluttering across the ceiling. It was late, but she could not sleep, not while Morgan was out doing cop things and she was busy thinking.

Sure, her post-EMP apocalypse survival plan sounded easy. Lace up her boots, grab her bow, and head out for the woods to bag some game. She did that pretty much every day to begin with. But, things were complicated now, just as they were complicated back when they were fighting the cult.

Damn… had she become accustomed to modern luxuries so easily?

What concerned Jess the most was not Hope County and its people. She always felt that during a massive, society-disrupting event, Hope County would find itself in a favorable position. Its low, thinly-spread population, natural defenses, and abundant natural resources lent itself to a great location to ride out an apocalypse. That's what attracted Joseph Seed and his followers to the place.

What concerned Jess was the other people from outside of the county. Especially people living in major population centers. None of them were prepared for a disaster of this scale. The government would not be there to help them. Once the cities began to unravel, and they will, those with the weapons and desire to take what they wanted would migrate out. More than a few would end up in Hope County, she imagined.

Maybe she would raise this concern to Morgan later.

Right on cue, the door to their home swung open. Morgan stood there, hunched over with his gear haphazardly slung onto his back. Boomer jumped up at the sound of the door opening before immediately trotting over to greet Morgan, his tail wagging a million miles an hour.

"Hey, buddy," he said quietly, giving Boomer a few pats on the head.

Jess got up and walked over.

"Babe," she greeted before giving Morgan a kiss. He weakly returned it, although Jess could tell he was trying his best.

"You okay?" she whispered.

He nodded.

"Yeah, fine."

Jess frowned.

"Oh, come on. You're not."

"I'm just… beat. I've been up since seven. Ran across the entire valley with the sheriff. I need to lay down."

Morgan tossed his gear into a corner and shambled over to the bedroom. Jess followed.

He sat on the bed and threw off his uniform shirt and pants. He must have been really out of it considering he always made sure his uniform clothes were nicely folded.

"Do you want me to…?" Jess began.

"Nah, don't worry about it."

Morgan flopped down and Jess slide over to her side of the bed and laid her head next to his.

"Shit, man. They worked you hard, huh?" she whispered to him, running a hand through his hair.

Morgan gave a weak smile.

"When you're the hero of Hope County, people just have a habit of making you run around and do things."

"So I've noticed."

They were silent for a few moments, listening to the sounds of people doing whatever it was they were doing to prepare for what came next.

"Listen," Jess whispered to him, "go sleep. Just take a breather, because you fuckin' deserve it. We'll deal with this in the morning."

Morgan nodded at the ceiling.

"Yeah… something tells me this just a taste of what's gonna go down."

"So negative. Be positive. Like me."

"Oh, shut up."


	3. Chapter 3

_This is the BBC News. It is five o'clock Greenwich time, broadcasting from London for the benefit of our friends in the United States. Here are the top stories for this hour._

 _The acting President of the United States confirmed during a radio broadcast that nuclear weapons were used against Iran and North Korea in retaliation for an "unprovoked attack on American infrastructure and society." The acting president has also stated that the perpetrators of the electromagnetic pulse attack on the United States were a collection of Middle Eastern terrorist cells funded and equipped by Iran and North Korea. At this time, these reports cannot be substantiated by this network._

 _According to initial reports, infrastructure at all levels across the continental United States has been heavily damaged and may take years to fully repair. Basic services such as power, water, and food delivery have been disrupted for much of the country._

 _Reports are coming in that all U.S. military personnel stationed outside of the country are currently being recalled to assist with stabilizing and providing relief to the United States. It is not yet known how this will affect NATO and other alliances the U.S. is heavily involved in._

 _The prime minister of India has declared victory in the nuclear exchange with Pakistan, which occurred three hours following yesterday's detonation of two nuclear weapons over the continental United States. So far, the Pakistani cities of Islamabad, Hyderabad, Karachi, Peshawar, and Lahore have been confirmed destroyed or heavily damaged, as have several Pakistani military installations and suspected nuclear silos. India maintains that Pakistan launched their nuclear arsenal first and India acted in self-defense. The Indian cities of Mumbai, Bangalore, New Delhi, and Ahmedabad were confirmed to be heavily damaged by nuclear strikes. Elements of the Indian Army are reportedly en route to occupy parts of Pakistan._

 _The president of the People's Republic of China declared the nation's dedication to maintaining order throughout the world in the aftermath of the nuclear exchanges. The People's Liberation Army has been mobilized and has offered its support to the armed forces of India, Japan, and South Korea._

 _The prime minister of Russia released a statement supporting India and has offered the support of the Russian Armed Forces for operations in Pakistan._

 _In a statement made during an emergency session of Parliament earlier, the prime minister affirmed the United Kingdom's support for the United States, citing the special relationship shared between the two nations. The prime minister has also promised to provide aid to the U.S. by the end of the month. The United Kingdom joins the other nations that have sworn their support for the recovery of the United States, which include Australia, Japan, France, Italy, Germany, South Korea, Poland, Argentina, Chile, and Brazil._

 _At the interim United Nations headquarters in Geneva, the General Assembly meets later today to discuss how to properly move forward and provide aid and relief to parts of the world affected by what many are calling "World War Three."_

 _Coming up, our panel of experts will discuss what precisely constitutes an electromagnetic pulse weapon and the risks the United Kingdom faces from a sudden attack on its infrastructure._

 _But first, in economic news, the electromagnetic pulse attack on the United States has had an unexpected effect- one of wreaking havoc on the London Stock Exchange…_

* * *

Morgan, Jess, Whitehorse, Mary, Grace, Pratt, and Hudson crowded around the radio, attentively listening to the crackling British-accented voice that came through. This was the first wave of national and international news coming into Hope County and Morgan fully intended to get every scrap he could.

Whitehorse reached out and lowered the volume of the radio as the commentator talked about the fluctuating English stock market.

No one spoke for several long moments.

"Well, goddamn," Whitehorse finally sighed, speaking for the whole room.

The others grimly nodded in reply.

"So, that's it, huh? We got hit, nukes started flying, half the world got fucked," Hudson said as she leaned on the table before her, staring at the wall.

"Sure seems like it," Grace replied.

"You guys did hear him say 'acting president,' right? What the hell happened to the original one?" Morgan said.

"This just keeps getting better," Hudson grumbled.

"Well, look on the bright side," Pratt said in an attempt to rally his friends, "we got aid coming in from around the world, the military is coming home… we just gotta hold out until they get here to flip the power back on."

Everyone continued to look morose. Whitehorse drummed his fingers on the worn radio.

"Right?" Pratt added hopefully.

Jess chuckled, devoid of humor.

"Dude, you _realize_ where we are, right? Middle of the fucking country. The closest actual city is, like, six hundred miles away. Any aid that comes into this country, it's gonna be hitting the major ports first. New York, L.A., New Orleans. The army, or whoever, they're gonna start in the cities and move inward. Gotta establish a foothold first. And those cities- those are the places that will really go to shit in the next couple of weeks. You got a bunch of people crammed together who can't grow anything except weed maybe and rely on the city government to do everything for them. Anywhere with any major population will turn into hell on fucking Earth once the food runs out."

"The one thing we got going for us is that we're far away from anything resembling a major city. We got plenty of farmland, and plenty of people who know the hell they're doing," Whitehorse added.

"Sure," Jess continued, "but that also means we won't be seeing the cavalry comin' riding in over the horizon to save our sorry asses."

"What she's trying to say is- we're on our own," Mary said, "but I think that's something we're used to."

"Indeed," Whitehorse said with a nod.

He lightly slapped the table before him, signifying the news hour was over.

"Whelp, let's get back to it. Rook, Grace, help me make sure the people in town don't start eating each other yet. Pratt, Hudson, take my car and go do a little circle around the county. Make sure nothing's burning down yet."

"Yes, sir," Morgan said as he followed Whitehorse and Grace out into Fall's End.

"C'mon, Pratt, you're driving," Hudson said as she jumped up from the desk she had plopped herself on.

"Wait, why me?"

"Because I just volunteered you. Grab a shotgun on your way out, too. Thanks."

The two deputies departed, leaving Mary and Jess alone.

"Jess, can you come help me move some stuff up from the basement?"

Jess eyed Mary.

"That sounds a little… ominous."

Mary smirked.

"It's booze."

"Oh, hell, yeah!" Jess said, quickly following Mary to the bar.

* * *

Morgan watched over his shoulder as Pratt and Hudson piled into Whitehorse's bright blue 1968 Plymouth Fury. Pratt turned the key and the V8 engine growled as it woke.

Morgan whistled as the car pulled out of the lot and down the street.

"Sheriff, you never told us you were hiding that thing on us."

Whitehorse chuckled.

"I always tell myself I'll take it out for a spin… but then I stop because I'm too scared it'll rust or something."

Morgan could understand.

"Hey, fuck you, man! I said you could have _half_ my fucking gas, not the whole goddamn thing!" an angry voice shouted to their left.

Morgan, Grace, and the sheriff rounded to see two men arguing in front of a red pickup truck, one of them holding a presumably empty jerry can. Curses and threats flew back-and-forth and it was clear the argument was about to devolve into a fist fight. Or worse, considering one man's Glock was clearly sitting in a leather holster on his hip.

"I got this," Grace announced, already jogging towards them to defuse the situation.

Morgan and the sheriff continued their walk, having no doubt Grace would have the two men cowering in fear of her soon.

"Can't believe this. Day two and we got people fighting over gas," Morgan commented.

"People are on edge, Rook. Can you blame them?"

"Really can't," Morgan said with a shake of his head.

"How's the gas rationing going?" Morgan added.

"It's okay. For now. We've set aside what we hope is enough for the farming equipment and giving everyone else ten gallons a week. Hopefully there won't be any riots over this anytime soon."

They passed the smells of cooking meat. Casey and the rest of the cooks from the Spread Eagle were cooking and serving up a large amount of excess meat that could they could not find space for in the working fridges. Mary had decided an impromptu late summer barbecue may be useful for easing the stress of this whole thing.

At the edge of town, the two cops saw two figures approaching from up the road. One of them was wearing a ball cap and the other, shorter figure was carrying something in one of their hands.

Soon, Morgan was smiling.

"Well, look who decided to make an appearance!" he called.

Nick and Kim Rye jogged over to him, Kim very lightly since she was holding baby Nicole Rye in her carrier.

"Hey, brother!" Nick greeted, wasting no time pulling Morgan into a quick hug.

"Morgan!" Kim said, standing up to kiss him on the cheek and put one arm around his neck.

They gave the same greeting to the sheriff.

"We would've called, of course, but… you know," Nick said.

"Yeah, I get you. Listen, it's no problem. We've all had a lot to deal with," Morgan replied with reassuring wave of his hand.

"How are things at your house?" Whitehorse inquired.

Kim smiled faintly.

"Well… same as everyone I guess. Power's dead. Cars are dead. We got one of Nick's old radios working and have been keeping up with everything, though. EMP… never heard of it before all this, but hell of a thing."

Whitehorse chuckled.

"That seems to be the common consensus."

"How's the plane?" Morgan asked, figuring that was the most pressing question in the moment.

Nick's eyes lit up and he grinned broadly.

"Oh, Carmina? She's fine, man! Ain't nothin' digital in there!"

"Glad to hear it! Should prove useful in the next couple of days. Or months… or whatever."

Morgan had an idea he had been brewing all day, but wasn't sure if it was wise to enact it.

"Hey, guys, what's the closest city to us?" Morgan posed to the group, letting his mouth open without thinking.

Everyone thought for a few seconds.

"Uh… Missoula, right?" Kim said.

"No, no, I mean, like a _real_ city."

"Boise?" Whitehorse proposed.

"No, actual, _actual_ city."

"Shit, man… uh… Denver?" Nick offered.

Morgan pointed at Nick and snapped his fingers.

"Yeah! Yeah, you're probably right. Listen… I was thinking you and me fly over there. Check it out. See what's going down in the other parts of the country. Sure, we can listen to it on the radio, but I want to see it for myself."

Rather predictably, Kim looked concerned.

"Morgan… that could be dangerous!"

Nick scoffed.

"Babe, I don't think anyone's gonna be taking shots at us with surface-to-air missiles to somethin' like that."

Kim frowned.

"Maybe not that. But… you don't know what's going on outside the county."

"We don't. That's why I think we need to do this," Morgan said.

"We'll be fine. It'll take us, like, six hours, tops. We'll be back before dinner," Nick tried to reassure his wife.

"I just don't like it."

Kim looked to Whitehorse for support. The man stroked his mustache contemplatively.

"I can't say I like it either, but I think Rook's right. Information will be as vital as food and bullets, I think."

Defeated, Kim groaned heavily.

"Alright, fine. If you two die in a burning plane wreck, just remember I told you so."

Nick smiled and kissed his wife on the forehead.

"Babe, don't worry. I'll be okay."

Nick gently kissed baby Nicole as she reclined in her carrier.

"We'll be back before you know it."

Nick turned to Morgan.

"Alright man, you ready to go?"

"Let's do this."

The two men turned and began to walk back to Nick's home.

* * *

"How much further?"

Beck looked down at Layton Hubbard, the young teen's pudgy face staring back at him. He had asked that question five times today.

Beck shrugged.

"Not too far, I guess. Three miles?"

"How long will it take to walk that?" he whined. The kid was quite obviously unused to walking any measure of distance. The whole family was, in fact, and they spent much of their waking moments complaining. Autumn was doing her best to focus on getting where they needed to get, however.

"No clue," he replied.

They had walked an entire day without seeing a single person. Beck felt that being stranded in the backwoods of Montana meant that encountering another person was not a guarantee. But, what was strange was seeing several cars pulled to the side of the road. They had been seemingly abandoned by their occupants, as if they had simply stopped moving.

One car still had its keys in the ignition. After a brief debate, Beck had attempted to start it, only to find it would not even turn over. A few yards later, they came across another vehicle, which Carolyn attempted to hotwire, a skill Beck was surprised she had. No luck.

They had resorted to taking supplies from the stopped cars, such as blankets, clothes, and food. Beck reasoned they would need it more than the people who had up and left their cars.

The really interesting time was when the survivors had been forced to spend the previous night in the woods by the road. It became very clear that no members of the Hubbard family have ever been camping. Carolyn, Mike, and Beck had, but under different circumstances with a much better variety of gear. During their walk, Beck learned that Mike the security guy was a former Marine, a veteran of the Battle of Fallujah. Sleeping on some blankets in the middle of the woods was certainly not the worst accommodations he had ever had.

Now, they were back on their walk, close to Hope County, wherever the hell that was.

It was midday now and the survivors had taken a short break, stopping in and around an abandoned Toyota sedan haphazardly pulled to the side of the road. The car was unlocked, so they popped the trunk and checked for supplies. There was a pair of beat up white sneakers, ones that fit Ellen well enough, allowing her to discard the now worn out pumps she had been forced to trek in this whole time.

Beck sat on the hood on the sedan, sipping water. Twelve miles was not a challenge for him, even though he was a bit older now and it had been a while since his last hike. If it was just him, Mike, and even Carolyn, they would have reached Hope County yesterday. But, alas, they did not have that luxury.

Carolyn sat next to Beck, munching on the contents of a bag of beef jerky.

"So, captain," she had between mouthfuls, "what do you think happened?"

He capped his bottle and turned to her.

"What do you mean?"

Carolyn shrugged.

"I'm just saying… I think something… weird happened."

"Weird?"

"Yeah, weird. Plane falls out of the sky. The road is lined with cars that have just stopped dead in their tracks. 'Weird' is the word I'm using."

Beck chuckled.

"Okay, 'weird' it is. I'm inclined to agree with you, but honestly, I haven't given it too much thought."

"Makes sense, since we've been focusing on just putting one foot in front of the other."

"Yep."

Autumn walked on over to where Beck and Carolyn were sitting.

"What's up, sweetheart?" Carolyn inquired.

"I heard you talking about how something happened that caused the plane to crash and all the cars to stop working."

"Yeah?"

Autumn paused, as if she was a bit hesitant.

"Well, let's hear it," Beck tried to encourage her.

"Have you guys ever heard of an EMP? Or a solar flare?"

Beck and Carolyn looked at each other.

"No. Never," Carolyn replied.

Beck was lost in a memory. For a moment, he was back in Iraq, 2003.

He was sitting with the rest of his squadron in the shade of a tent by the landing strip. The desert air was chokingly hot. Some distance away, several aircraft came and went.

" _The new F-18s will be delivered this week. It's good stuff. More hardpoints for weapons, better engine thrust, and upgraded electronics. Better shielding against radiation and electromagnetic pulse too,"_ his squadron commander had said.

" _This mean these things will keep flying no matter what, sir?"_ someone asked.

" _That's right, unless your ass decides to run out of fuel and crash in the desert,"_ the commander replied with a wry smile.

Back in the present, Beck's mind was working.

"Autumn, that makes a lot of sense," he suddenly blurted out.

"It does? You think it was an EMP?" the girl answered.

"Could be. It would explain a lot."

Autumn exhaled heavily.

"Holy shit."

She covered her mouth.

"Oh, uh, sorry," she added.

Carolyn appeared quite lost.

"It's okay, sweetie. Now, can one of you experts key me in here?"

"In physics last semester, we were talking about solar flares. Those are occasional releases of highly charged particles from the Sun. And my teacher was talking about how solar flares release these particles can fry most modern electronics. It just stuck in my mind and really kinda scared me," Autumn explained.

She looked over to the rest of her family and lowered her voice.

"I tried talking about it with my parents… but I don't think they really cared."

"Captain, do you know about this too?" Carolyn asked Beck.

"Heard about it when I was in the Air Force. Once or twice, I think."

"And… you're saying this solar flare or whatever caused our plane to go down? And all these cars to stop?"

"Yeah," Autumn said.

"Could also have been a nuke," Beck added.

"Wait, what?" Carolyn turned to him.

"EMPs can be created by high-altitude nuclear detonations."

Carolyn laughed, but it was a laugh of disbelief.

"Okay, you two are throwing a lot at me. Nukes? The sun… exploding or whatever?"

"It would make sense… the plane just gave up on me. Every car we've come across is dead. No one came to help us because we would certainly not be the only flight that went down," Beck continued, mostly ignoring her.

"Oh, Jesus, come on! Speak English!" she moaned, throwing her hands up in frustration.

Carolyn sighed and looked to Autumn.

She was staring out down the empty road.

"Autumn, are you okay, honey?" Carolyn inquired.

"Shhhh!" she hissed.

Carolyn chuckled.

"Oh, you're testy!"

"No, I'm serious!" the girl replied forcefully.

"Listen!" Autumn said, gesturing down the road.

Beck and Carolyn fell silent. They strained to hear what she heard.

"I'm getting old… I can't hear what you can, obviously-" Carolyn started.

She stopped mid-sentence.

Beck heard it too. The distinct sound of an engine, coming their way.

The rest of the Hubbard family stumbled to their feet at the sound.

"Hey!" Ellen shouted, "someone's coming!"

"Yeah…" Beck mumbled. The engine sounded like an old muscle car. Someone was going cruising and would stumble across this miserable band of survivors.

"I think I see it," Carolyn said, pointing down the road.

Beck could not make out the make and model, but it was a bright blue muscle car, probably from the 60s or 70s judging by its profile.

"Let's make sure they see us," he said, reaching into the back of his pants to draw his crudely holstered flare pistol. Beck loaded a flare and pointed the gun to the sky before firing.

The car slowed down for a moment. Then, the engine picked up as the driver slammed the gas.

* * *

"Hey, Nick!" Morgan said into his headset from the backseat of Carmina.

"What's up, brother?" Nick asked from the controls.

"So, if I need to go to the bathroom, what do I do?"

Morgan heard Nick laugh into his headset.

"You got a bottle back there, don't you?"

Morgan chuckled and shook his head while peering out of the window next to him.

Outside, a thick cloud cover obscured the ground level. Morgan could not pick out a single feature on the ground through the blanket of gray clouds that lazily floated below them. Nick announced some time earlier they had crossed into Colorado. Carmina's GPS was fried, so Nick was keeping track of the distance covered the old fashioned way- with a paper, pencil, and book of maps.

"I'm going to bring us down a bit lower," Nick announced a few minutes later, "we should be getting close to the Denver suburbs."

Morgan felt his stomach pushed back in his torso as Nick dipped his plane downward and upped the throttle. The plane punched through the cloud cover, briefly hiding the outside world from view.

When they emerged out of the clouds, Morgan leaned up and peered out the window to scan ground level. Nick leveled out a few hundred feet above ground level, more than enough to discern individual people and features on the ground.

They were flying over a suburban area, presumably part of the Denver urban sprawl. At first, Morgan thought nothing looked particularly out of place. It was a typical American suburb, rows of proper houses, green lawns, and wide, streetlight-lined streets.

However, it was clear that the EMP attack had also heavily affected this area, just as it had Hope County.

There were numerous cars sprawled out on the roads, abandoned by their drivers when they suddenly died. Others were obviously pushed to the side by residents to make room on the roads. Some had crashed presumably when drivers lost control of their vehicles immediately after the EMP. A few cars were crashed into each other, others into homes or streetlights. At one intersection, Morgan saw a sedan turned onto its roof, with the remains of an SUV with a deformed front end a few feet away being the likely culprit.

There were plenty of people milling around, going about whatever business the EMP had forced them to attend to. Many stopped to stare and point at the bright yellow seaplane flying over their heads. The sight of a working motor-powered vehicle was probably going to become quite the sight in the next few months.

Morgan saw only one car running during their flight. It was an ancient looking pickup truck, chugging down a street with its bed loaded with equipment. Many people were riding bicycles, others were riding motorcycles, dirtbikes, or quads.

"Oh, Jesus!" Nick exclaimed.

Morgan looked up and saw what Nick was concerned with. Some distance away, in another suburb, there was a massive fire consuming several blocks of homes. It was identifiable by the tremendous column of inky black smoke being thrown up into the air. Morgan estimated that as many as fifty homes were currently being consumed by the blaze.

Morgan rubbed his chin, unable to find words for the moment.

"Goddamn, man. All those people… how the hell did this happen?" Nick said for him.

"Could be anything. Electrical fire, gas main break, plane crash, some guy who has never cooked on an open flame in his entire life trying to cook on a campfire too close to his house. Anything, really."

"This could have been one person accidentally dropping a candle on a curtain. Back before the EMP, you would just call the fire department. Now? Shit, man… not much you can do," Nick grimly remarked.

Morgan noticed he had referred to a few days ago as "before the EMP," as if it was some distant time. It was certainly starting to feel that way.

Nick jerked his head to indicate the tiny figures below staring up at the plane.

"And those people down there? They don't know that the next town over is burning to ashes. Normally, something like this would be breaking news, something you'd get on your phone or the next time you turn on the TV. Now? They won't even know this is going down until days or weeks after."

Morgan mused for a second about how accustomed they had all become to a world of hyperconnectivity. Just a few days ago, Morgan could have opened his phone and learned about what was going on across Montana, or in Texas, or California, or New York, or Florida, or Alaska, or wherever. A few more taps, and he could learn about what was happening in the United Kingdom, South Korea, China, Russia, Iraq, Australia, or even Azerbaijan or Botswana if he was so inclined.

Now, the news would come slowly, creeping in from whatever working radios were on hand. Any news coming in on the radios could not be trusted, even if they were from "official" sources. So much had occurred in such a short amount of time. Morgan was already figuring that news was full of wild conjecture, rumors, and conspiracy theories, no different than what was being whispered at the Spread Eagle or the meeting hall between Hope County residents.

Morgan involuntarily slid to the left as Nick banked his plane east.

"I wanna check out the airport," he announced.

Several minutes later, they flew towards downtown Denver. The freeway leading into the city was choked with abandoned vehicles. The occasional working car or truck picked its way around the stalled vehicles that blocked its path. Morgan could also see the occasional team of people pushing a stalled vehicle to the side to allow a truck or car to proceed. Almost every vehicle was heading out of the city. Morgan imagined that most of the drivers were survivalists and preppers, packed up and bugging out to weather the storm in their isolated retreats alongside family and trusted companions.

A columns of tan vehicles were heading inbound into the city. They were a mixture of Humvees and light trucks, with an armored car and two Stryker APCs heading up the pack. The gunner of one of the Humvee's .50 cal machine gun traversed to face the plane, hopefully out of curiosity.

"National Guard, looks like," Nick observed.

"Probably heading in to help keep the city under control," Morgan said.

Soon, they were over the city proper. Nick flew relatively close to the skyscrapers that made up Denver's skyline.

"Normally, the FAA would be on my ass for this, but I don't think anyone would complain," he commented.

Gazing down at street level, Morgan saw large amounts of people milling about in the streets, many stopping to marvel at the working plane. Bicycles, quads, and motorbikes flitted around the stalled cars in the streets.

Occasionally, a police car was parked at an intersection or in front of a building. They were mostly comprised of Ford Crown Victorias, classic police cars presumably dragged out of storage and found to still function, much to the chagrin of officers who must have been used to driving the newer Dodge Chargers or Ford Tauruses.

Elsewhere, a large crowd of people were crowded around the entrance of a building. It was a mall, and Morgan saw many people running out of the building with their arms full of various goods. Many of the things people were carrying out was certainly not food, water, or medicine.

"Goddamn, look at this shit!" Nick spat. "Fucking people. Not even three days into this thing and you got looters taking advantage of the fact the cops can't be everywhere at once. Look! That guy's carrying out a bunch of sneakers! It's not even things you need- like what the fuck are you gonna do with some Nikes or a designer purse?"

"We're lucky that we're not seeing too much of this back home," Morgan said, "I feel bad for everyone living in the major cities. Of course, you got plenty of assholes right now who are taking advantage of the chaos to just do whatever they want. No one can call the cops, so for them, it's a field day."

Morgan leaned back, watching a group of men load several gym bags full of what could only be stolen valuables into the back of a sedan.

"But it's okay. Those people will soon find out you can't eat Jordans."

"You know what worries me, though?" Nick asked.

"What?"

"There's plenty of looters, thieves, and general scumbags right now, who think that this is a great time to steal shit and enjoy themselves. They'll die off, sure. But what about the ones who survive into the next few months? Or next year?"

Morgan chuckled mirthlessly.

"Those are the guys that scare me."

* * *

"Coming up on the airport now," Nick announced.

"What exactly do you hope to see there?"

"Dunno really. Well, I like planes. So I guess I'm just curious."

They both shared a laugh, which helped to ease the mood a bit.

As the plane headed toward Denver International Airport, Morgan and Nick could both clearly see several columns of thick smoke rising into the air.

"Another fire?" Morgan asked.

Nick shook his head.

"Something like that…"

Flying over the airport, Morgan saw the smoldering wrecks of what must have been dozens of different aircraft. The remains were scattered across the runways, on the greenery, and on nearby roads. Fires were still burning, even two days after the EMP.

"What the hell, man?" Morgan mumbled, barely able to comprehend the sheer amount of destruction before him.

"These planes just fell out of the sky. The people on board didn't even have a chance," Nick said.

"How- how many people died? Just here?" Morgan asked, dreading the answer.

"I see a two 747s. A couple 737s. A bunch of different Airbuses. Couple others… don't really know what they are. I'd say… a couple thousand at least."

"Jesus Christ," Morgan mumbled.

"You know, at any given time, there are thousands upon thousands of commercial and private flights over the US. If all of those went down at the same time… we are looking as destruction I can't even find the words for," Nick said grimly.

Morgan had a tough time wrapping his head around it. This was a scene that was repeated across the country. Thousands had died already. The United States has suffered the worst attack on its soil in the history of the nation. Two flashes in the sky and America was facing destruction that made Pearl Harbor, 9/11, and every terrorist attack ever since look like minor incidents.

His mouth suddenly felt very dry. A voice in the back of his head whispered:

 _This is just the beginning._

"Nick," he began, "got what you need?"

He nodded.

"Yeah, man. I think I've seen enough."

Morgan looked back down at the carnage.

"Let's get back and figure out how to deal with this."


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N:** **Sorry for the delay, but here's new chapter. Things are a bit slow to start, I know, but don't worry. Fun stuff will happen next chapter, promise.**

 **And for those keeping up with my other work-in-progress _War Stories_ , I have _not_ forgotten about it. The next thing I publish will be a new chapter for _War Stories_. **

**If you enjoy this story, please let me know what you think. Feedback is always appreciated.**

* * *

"Please repeat this for me," Rich Hubbard said slowly, as if his mind was still processing the information he had just received.

"So… someone, we don't know who, sets of a bunch of nukes thousands of miles above us and this means we have a massive, continent-wide power failure that will last for years?" Rich asked quizzically.

The older, bespeckled, mustached man in the green sheriff's department uniform nodded patiently.

"Yes, sir," he replied.

"It's like those solar flares I was telling you about, dad," Autumn interjected, "you know, when the sun-"

"Yeah, yeah, honey," Rich mumbled running a hand through his hair.

Autumn fell silent and frowned.

Ellen was sitting at the nearby bar counter, having fallen into a numbed state upon hearing the news of the EMP attack. Layton was sitting next to his mom, looking like he was about to cry.

An hour or so ago, the survivors of the plane crash were rescued by two sheriff's deputies driving near the border of Hope County in a bright blue muscle car. That alone raised a few questions, but the deputies, a man and a woman whose names Beck had already managed to misplace in his mind, managed to bundle them all together and drive to the tiny town of Fall's End, which they quickly learned was the _largest_ settlement in the county.

Now they sat together in a bar called the Spread Eagle, which presumably represented the height of culinary excellence in Fall's End. A pretty blonde woman provided the survivors with hot coffee and some food, with hot chocolate for the kids.

That pretty blonde turned out to be named Mary and was the owner of the establishment. Beck was surprised when he heard the older man that came to meet them refer to her as "mayor." She seemed quite young to be running things.

"Oh, don't be such an old, angry white man," Carolyn had playfully ribbed him when he whispered this to her.

The bespeckled man in the Stetson talking to Rich was the sheriff. Sheriff Earl Whitehorse. Interesting name. He was trying his best to get through to Rich for a second time.

"Looks like you were right, honey," Carolyn said to Autumn, who was sitting next to her and thoughtfully sipping her hot chocolate.

"Yeah… I knew something was up. I just didn't know it could've been this of all things."

"To be honest, I prefer it if we were both wrong," Beck said, looking at the sheriff trying his best to explain the situation to Rich, who was becoming increasingly despondent.

"Mister Hubbard, I told you, there are no phones working in the town. Our cell phones and landlines got knocked out by the EMP. Maybe, and I say that tentatively, I can convince someone to let you use a working satellite phone. But even if you do somehow ring Seattle, I don't think anyone will be able to pick up."

"No, no sheriff, listen, I have good people. They'll come out for me!" Rich insisted, sounding like he was trying to convince himself more than he was trying to convince the sheriff.

"Sir, you are _not_ hearing me! This isn't some localized event- the entire country has been thrown into chaos by this thing. I doubt anyone is taking off from any major airport for the foreseeable future."

Rich ran both hands through his hair.

"What do you propose we do then? We can't stay here"

"And why not?"

Beck glanced over at Mary. She was leaning against the bar counter, arms folded over her chest.

"Are we too… 'country' for you?" she inquired.

Rich blinked.

"Oh, uh, well, no, it's… I have important things I need to be doing this week."

Mary shrugged.

"I'm sorry, sir, but you're gonna have to put whatever you got planned on hold. Right now, we're all very concerned with not dying in the next couple of weeks. You, your family, your friends, you're all welcome to stay here for as long as you need."

Ellen suddenly croaked from her place at the bar.

"I- I can't stay here!" she cried, shooting up from her seat.

"I have so much to do, I can't stay in this…. this… fucking _shithole town_!" Ellen screamed before burrowing her face into her hands, stifling her sobs.

Rich jogged over and immediately began to comfort her. The couple talked in low tones, with Ellen sobbing and vigorously shaking her head throughout.

Beck sighed softly. He noticed Mike giving him a look that stated _maybe we should try._

Beck rose and gestured for Mike to join him.

"Excuse me, ma'am," Beck said to Mary, Mike at his side.

Mary turned away from staring at Ellen and smiled up at him.

"Yes, mister…?"

"Beck. Jordan Beck. I was the captain of the plane we crashed in."

Mary extended her hand. Beck shook it.

"Mary May Fairgrave. Everyone calls me Mary, so I think it's perfectly fine if you and your companions do too, captain. I'm the owner of this place and, according to a unanimous vote I wanted no part in originally, the mayor of Fall's End."

"A pleasure, ma'am."

"Guess it's my turn," Mike said when Mary offered him her hand.

"Mike Barnes, I run private security for the Hubbard family."

"Pleased to meet you all. I wish you would have visited our town under better circumstances. I understand your landing helped save the lives of everyone with you, captain."

A twang of regret hit Beck. His mind's eye was briefly filled with the image of Ray sitting in his co-pilot seat, blood streaming down the massive wound that had replaced his face.

"Could have been better, I'm afraid," Beck replied.

"Considering the circumstances, I'd say you did a fine job," Mike told him.

Beck gave a slight grin.

"Appreciate that, Marine."

He turned back to Mary.

"Anyway, mayor, I just want to apologize for Miss Hubbard's behavior. She's… not taking this whole thing well. We're very glad for your hospitality, and if things are as bad as you say, we may have to stay here in town for a while."

Mary smiled and leaned back against the bar counter.

"Well, gentlemen, I don't think we'll have a problem with overcrowding if that's the case. We got an empty house in town we can set you up in."

"Appreciate that, ma'am."

A soft chuckle came from someone sitting at a barstool. Beck had noticed the woman when he first entered the building, but she had remained quiet throughout the entire time. Beck could tell she was silent, but observant, as if she did not yet know precisely what to make of the new arrivals and would be coming to a decision in time.

She was a young woman, mid-twenties it looked, and very pretty, but her face was covered with a series of wicked scars capped off with a moody frown. Beck was sure there was a story there, but he was not sure it would be one he wanted to hear right now.

Mary smirked.

"What's so funny, Jess?"

Jess, the young woman scowling up at Beck, leaned back in her stool.

"You guys are really lucky Mary is running things. I'd tell you to get your ass back on the road."

Mary laughed.

"Be nice, Jess. They're your new neighbors."

"Whatever," Jess said dismissively.

Beck shifted on his feet, feeling uncomfortable at the woman's reaction.

"Oh, don't worry, she's like this with everyone. She don't mean much by it," Mary explained as if she was reading her thoughts.

Jess smirked.

"You'll get used to it."

The door to the bar suddenly swung open, causing all eyes to turn to the new arrivals.

Two men strode in. One was sporting shaggy long hair and a beard with his eyes obscured by aviators. His companion was a tall, handsome, clean cut man with dark hair and wearing the same green uniform Sheriff Whitehorse wore.

"Shit, guys, Denver was a nightmare. We just got back and heard we got some new people-" the long haired guy started.

He suddenly stopped and stared at Beck and then over to where the rest of them were sitting.

"Oh, uh, hi," he greeted, surprised.

Beck nodded.

"Good evening."

The dark haired guy stepped forward and extended his hand.

"Hi, I'm Deputy Morgan Rook. Welcome to Hope County."

"Jordan Beck," Beck replied, taking his offered hand.

"Nick Rye," the other man introduced when it was his turn.

Beck did the rounds, pointing out his companions. Mike, Carolyn, and Autumn returned greetings. Rich, Layton, and Ellen ignored them. Nick was very pleased when he heard Beck was a fellow pilot.

A few minutes later, the newcomers got the story out of Beck. They remained silently contemplative during the retelling.

"Ah, well… that sounds like the story everywhere. We took a little flight to Denver in Nick's plane. He's got a plane that's working just fine."

"What kind?" Beck asked Nick.

Nick's eyes lit up.

"I was wondering when you were gonna ask, man! Ah, her name's Carmina- she's been the Rye family's plane for as long as I could remember. See, she's got a de Havilland Beaver chassis, but…"

"Wait!" Rich suddenly cried.

Everyone stared at him.

"You… you got a plane that works?"

"Uh, yeah, man, takes a little more than an EMP to do her in!"

Rich shot up from his seat and strode over to Nick. He grabbed Nick by the shoulders and frantically pleaded with him.

"Listen, listen! You gotta get me and my family out of here. We can't stay here. We just can't."

Nick, taken slightly aback, put up his hands defensively.

"Whoa, okay, hold on, Mister Hubbard!"

"I will pay you whatever you want. We just need to get to Seattle."

"I- I don't think I can help you there, I'm sorry!"

"Why not?!" Rich shouted, launching spittle into Nick's face.

"Mister Hubbard," Beck said, grabbing him by the shoulder.

"I have a business to run, a house to take care of…"

"Mister Hubbard!" Beck said, more forcefully.

"Sir, listen. You heard what Mister Rye had to say about Denver. It's a _nightmare_. And it's going to get worse, a lot worse, before it even _begins_ to get better."

"I can't just stay here and have no one running things!" Rich countered.

Beck wanted to burst out laughing. Was that seriously his main concern?

"Listen to me," Beck said, dropping his voice to a low, but severe, tone, "just listen. Seattle will go to hell in a handbasket by the end of the week. It's probably halfway there already. If you really want to go back, if you really think that's the best plan, it's going to be bad. Looters will break into your house, kill you, your son, and do things I don't think I need to describe to your wife and your daughter. You think the security you've hired to protect your home will stop them? They're probably long gone by now. You don't even own a gun. Are you planning to call the cops? You can't, and even if you could, they got a lot more to worry about than another rich guy getting cut up with a machete."

Rich stared at Beck intensely for several moments. Eventually, he exhaled sharply, let go of Nick, and roughly shoved Beck's arm off of him.

"Alrighty then. Since you have all the answers, we'll stay here for now."

Beck nodded once.

"Miss Fairgrave, can you please show us where we can stay?" he asked the mayor.

"I'd be happy to. Come on, follow me," Mary replied with a wave of her hand.

The plane crash survivors shuffled out of the Spread Eagle, some less than happy with this new arrangement.

* * *

Nick watched the door closed. Morgan dropped the hand he just now realized had subconsciously been hovering over his sidearm.

With a shake of his head, Nick whistled.

"Well, this should be interesting," he mumbled.

Morgan shrugged.

"Eh, I wouldn't worry. I think he'll be… humbled…"

"Yeah, man. But, hey! That pilot guy seemed pretty cool."

Morgan chuckled.

"I figured you'd have a bond there."

"Alright man, it was nice flying with you, but I gotta get home. See you tomorrow?" Nick asked.

Morgan took Nick's extended hand and pulled him into a quick hug.

"For sure, brother. Have a good one."

After Nick exited, Morgan took a seat next to the sheriff and helped himself to a pitcher of coffee steaming on the counter.

"So, Rook," Whitehorse began, "is Denver really that bad?"

"I don't think what I told you could even begin to describe how _truly_ terrible things are over there. It's gonna be total _Lord of the Flies_ in a week or two. I can't even begin to imagine how this shit is going down in somewhere like New York or Chicago," Morgan said after a thoughtful sip of coffee.

"Yeah, Morgan, Denver really sucks, huh?"

Morgan shot a look over to the far end of the bar. Jess was sitting there, slinking in the shadows. He had been so focused on everything else, he did not notice her.

He smiled and strode over to her.

"Hey, baby, I didn't see you there."

Jess smirked and leaned up to give him a kiss. She pushed him away after a brief lip lock.

"Alright, that's all you're getting."

"Wait, what did I do?" he whined.

"I'm mad at you."

"Why?"

Jess snorted.

"Uh, you decided to go on a little day trip to fucking Colorado and didn't even think to tell me you were going up in Nick's deathtrap plane? Remember that?"

"Jess! Oh god, I'm sorry. I just… got caught up in the moment. I wanted to go and get it done before it got dark."

She looked away from him, pouting, with her arms folded across her chest.

"Whatever, man."

"Oh, Jess, don't go and hit me with the 'whatever, man.' That hurts!"

Morgan leaned over and wrapped his arms around her. She struggled, but it was more of a show.

"Stop! I'm mad!"

"I'm not!"

She pushed him off and stood up with the hint of a smile on her face.

"I'm gonna go brood for a little bit. You go and patrol or something."

Jess left the bar, leaving Morgan alone with Whitehorse.

"Women," Morgan sighed.

"They'll be the death of you, son. Smoking hasn't done me in yet, but getting divorced gave me a heart attack."

* * *

With the streetlights out and almost every house in town lacking their interior lights, Fall's End had become just as dark as Hope County's fields and forests after sunset.

The distinctive neon sign above the entrance to the Spread Eagle was usually bold and bright every night. No longer was that the case.

Inside the town watering hole, the interior was lit by lanterns and candles, which was barely enough to keep the darkness out.

Mary had pushed together the various tables inside the bar to form one large communal table. Several townspeople sat there together, eating fettuccine alfredo with a side of formerly-frozen meatballs.

Morgan was among them. At his end of the table was Jess, Grace, Whitehorse, Mary, Nick, Kim, Nicole in her baby carrier, Pratt, and Hudson. They ate and talked softly, laughing on occasion. Morgan's mind was filled with uncertainty and he was truly, genuinely afraid, but sitting here with his friends and the woman he loved made up for it. It was like they were gathering for a late summer barbecue.

"Well, we need to look on the bright side," Pratt said, twirling creamy noodles on his fork.

"There's a _bright side_ , Pratt?" Hudson said with a humorless chuckle.

"Yeah, I guess. Maybe. At least it wasn't a nuclear war and we're not fighting off mutants and psycho bandits straight out of _Mad Max_ or something. You know. Crazy guys in homemade armor, with guns held together with duct tape and rusted wrecks of cars that have been destroyed and rebuilt twice over."

"I think you've been playing too many video games, Staci," Mary said.

They all laughed while Pratt held up his hands.

"Hey, I'm just saying!"

The chatter resumed for a moment. Morgan was staring at his plate.

"So, uh, speaking of," he said during a lull, "have I… ever told you guys what I saw when we went to arrest Joseph? You know. When he… hit me with the Bliss."

Morgan's friends quieted. The defeat of Joseph Seed may have been close to a year ago by now, but the memories were still very much fresh in everyone's minds.

"Rook..." Whitehorse began.

Morgan had only told Jess what he had seen that time, when he was half-conscious and hallucinating horrors that still, months later, sometimes caused him to wake up in a cold sweat.

"It's okay, I think I should share it. Pratt got me thinking."

"I was always curious. If you want to tell us, go for it," Mary encouraged gently.

"Right. Well. I… Joseph showed me that he had somehow got most of you under his control. You, Jess, Nick, the pastor… all my friends. He told me I had to walk away and leave you all under his control. I… I guess in the moment I never thought about how exactly he managed to get to you guys, but it made sense then. You know?"

"That Bliss shit will do that to you," Jess mumbled.

"Yeah. Anyway, I knew I couldn't do that. I told him to shove it. Pretty much. That's when he dumped the rest of the Bliss barrels and…well, we started to fight. For some reason, I just knew that shooting you would cure you of the Bliss. So, uh, yeah. I shot all of you."

Some people gasped. Some laughed.

"What the fuck, man? You shot me?" Nick complained.

"Right in your beautiful face, brother."

"Ah, man that's _fucked_! Kim would've kicked me out if you ruined this face!"

"It's true," his wife chimed in.

"Hey, it was Joseph's crazy drug world, not mine."

"What happened next?" Mary asked.

"Oh, yeah, right. So… I cured you all. With bullets."

More laughter.

"And then I thought I was done tripping balls when I saw Joseph on his knees and the sheriff slapping the cuffs on him. He started reciting Revelations and then… a nuclear bomb went off."

There was a chorus of "holy shit!" and "really?" from his friends.

"Yeah. Fuckin' nuke, just went off right over the mountains. I guess the Bliss has a thing for dramatic timing. Everyone scatters. Me, the sheriff, Pratt, and Hudson, we all stick together and head for a truck. Sheriff, you bought Joseph with us, too."

Whitehorse chuckled.

"And why the fuck would I do that?"

Morgan smiled and shrugged.

"You know, that's another thing I should've questioned. If it was real, I guess you would've just left Joseph to get his face melted off by nuclear hellfire. But, it wasn't, so you took Joseph with us."

"Not one of my better decisions," Whitehorse said, eliciting a series of laughs.

"Dutch came over the radio. He told us we needed to drive to his bunker. So… I drove. To his island, dodging fireballs and falling trees. But we crashed."

"I figured that would happen, since you drive as good as you can shoot," Grace remarked.

Morgan shot her a look. She smiled in reply.

"Anyway. I was knocked out. I felt like I was being moved. When I came to… I was in Dutch's bunker. Dutch was dead. Don't ask me how Joseph managed to, one, get _into_ the bunker in the first place, and two, kill Dutch, a military veteran who walks around with a forty-five strapped to his leg everywhere he goes while Seed himself was completely unarmed. Just roll with it."

They all laughed and Morgan held up his hand for silence.

"Almost done. So finally, I come to, handcuffed to a bedframe and Joseph standing over me, ranting about how we are gonna 'walk through the gates of Eden together' or something."

"As you guys can see, Morgan has a habit of being handcuffed to beds by old men," Jess commented.

He glared at her.

" _You_ , shut up."

She flipped him off. But, she was smiling as she did so. Morgan figured she was over her anger at him.

Whitehorse whistled.

"That's something, Rook."

"Yes, sir. I just remember thinking Seed was right. And now I'll be stuck with him for eternity. Or until the fallout settled. Then, next thing I know, Boomer is licking my face and you're all staring down at me very concerned for my health and sanity."

"Well, he wasn't right, was he?" Mary asked.

"I guess not."

"I mean… maybe he was," Pratt said quietly.

Everyone looked at him.

"What?" he retorted.

"I don't know about you guys, but I think we're in the midst of a Collapse here," Pratt added, motioning to the propane lantern set on the table.

"The difference is, Seed thought we would all die unless we came together under his banner. We don't need him or any bullshiter like him. We got this, all of us, together," Mary said.

Everyone was quiet, but nodded thoughtfully at Mary's words.

"Maybe all this is just a very big Bliss hallucination and I'm stuck in a bunker with Joseph still," Morgan said, rubbing his chin.

Jess slapped him lightly across the cheek.

"Ow! Hey!"

"Did that feel real?"

"Uh… yeah!"

"Then you're not hallucinating, babe."


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N: I hope you enjoy this chapter. Thank you for your follows, favorites, and continued support.**

 **If you like what I am writing, please consider taking the time to leave a review. As any writer can attest, reviews and feedback are a big motivation to keep us writing!**

* * *

The people of Fall's End had turned in for the night. The dark, quiet streets of their hometown was devoid of lights, sound, and activity. Another tally mark would be added to signify another day passed in the post-EMP world.

Most residents were asleep, but this was not the case everywhere.

In the upstairs study of one Fall's End home, Austin Myers sat awake by candlelight. It was close to two in the morning, but he was wide awake. By the flickering glow of two candles, Austin loaded 5.56mm rounds into metal AR-15 magazines. His mind was racing and he figured a monotonous task would help him relax.

A few houses down, Deputy Staci Pratt shot up awake. He ran a hand through his hair, feeling the sweat that dripped down his face. He was dreaming, something about Jacob. Something about how he stood before Pratt, gloating about how he had been right all along and now the weak would die, die starving, sick, and cold, while the strong rose up and took what they were owed.

But, in a quaint ranch house right around the corner from the Fall's End garage, all was quiet.

Deputy Morgan Rook was asleep in bed next to Jess Black. Her warm frame was snuggled against his own. He slept a deep, dreamless sleep, the kind no one wanted to wake up from. Boomer was asleep just outside in the living room, curled up like a fuzzy pile of blankets on his round doggie bed.

The peace that had settled over the town was shattered by three loud reports. Gunshots.

Morgan and Jess stirred awake at the same time. The deputy blinked several times, chasing away the last vestiges of sleep.

"What was that? The fuck is going on?" Jess shouted, already wired and ready for action.

Morgan sat up and kicked off the sheets before groping around for a flashlight and his pistol.

Jess was already up, picking up an old, baggy t-shirt that she threw over her head to cover her bare torso and reached down to cover the underwear she was sleeping in. Morgan pulled on a pair of sweatpants and a shirt that was inside-out and stuck his feet into a pair of flip-flops.

"Where's my bow?" she asked.

"Forget it, just take my rifle," Morgan replied, handing her his AR-15 rifle that he kept in their closet.

Jess grunted in displeasure, but took the rifle anyway and pulled back the charging handle. Morgan checked the chamber of his Hi-Power and ran out for the door, Jess in tow. Boomer, wagging his tail at the sudden activity, followed.

Outside in Main Street, several other townspeople disturbed from their slumber assembled, weapons at the ready. The residents of Fall's End had become accustomed to respond quickly to gunfire near or within the town, a trait etched into their collective conscience during the war against Eden's Gate.

The epicenter of the commotion was the general store. Proprietor Mitch Calhoun stood just outside the door to his business. Within the doorway to the general store was a body facedown on the ground, bleeding from three exit wounds in its torso. Mitch held a flashlight in one hand and a freshly fired .45 pistol in the other. Both were trained on someone before him.

The residents who had a mind to bring extra lights found Mitch staring down a young man, no older than 25, with a head of thick, chestnut brown hair and a matching beard. His hands were up over his head in a gesture of surrender. Morgan did not recognize him as a county resident.

From one of the houses, Carolyn, Mike, and Captain Beck from the plane that went down came out. The two kids and their parents followed.

"Oh my God!" the mom, Ellen, shouted upon sighting the dead body.

"Go back inside! Now!" she ordered her children.

"What's going on here?" Sheriff Whitehorse's voice boomed over the crowd's chatter.

The sheriff strode forward, a Ruger Mini-14 rifle in his hand. His appearance would have been amusing in any other context- he wore a long sleeved shirt that read _Hope County's Original Testicle Festival 2007_ , plaid pajama pants, and a pair of blue fuzzy slippers. He had even had enough of a sense to grab his wide-brimmed Stetson on the way out.

Mitch nodded at the young man before him.

"A few minutes ago, I got woken up by the sound of something crashing downstairs. Grab my pistol, head down, see these two upstanding citizens tryin' to book it with a backpack full of my stuff. The dead idiot in the doorway had a gun and aimed it at me as he was leaving. I was faster."

Hudson, clutching her trademark Remington 870 shotgun, approached the dead body and lifted him up by the shoulder. From underneath his corpse, Hudson pushed out a silver revolver into the circle of flashlights.

"Hm," Whitehorse grunted thoughtfully.

"What's in the bag, son?" he asked the thief.

The young man quickly and uneasily took his backpack from off his shoulders and turned it out. Several cans of food, a few individually wrapped snacks, and several boxes of ammo.

"Fucking thief, you're lucky Mitch didn't put a bullet in your skull!" someone shouted.

"Should've killed this fucking degenerate too, Mitch!" someone else added.

Whitehorse raised a hand to signal calm.

"Where are you from?" he asked.

"Emerson," the young man replied.

"Emerson? Where's that?"

"Missoula County… it's like three hours from here!"

"Interesting. And what were you doing here? Besides the obvious."

"When this shit kicked off, me and, uh, Eric over there… we headed out of town, just walking wherever, just taking what we could. Listen man, we never hurt anyone. The gun was just to scare people!"

"Oh, right," Jess started, "you ain't hurting anyone, sure. But you're taking food, ammo, medicine, water, whatever. Nowadays, not having that shit could be a fucking death sentence for someone."

"Look, I'm sorry! Just… put me in jail or something. I'm done."

"Nah," Mary said with a shake of her head, "we ain't just putting you in jail for a few days so you can sit on your ass and get fed three meals a day. That's pretty much the same thing as you getting away with Mitch's food."

"She's right," a townsperson said.

"We should hang this motherfucker from a tree, like they did a hundred years ago!" he added.

Sarah Powers from the bank scoffed heavily.

"Hang him? The fuck, man? This ain't the Wild West!"

"It might as well be," he replied with a huff.

"Alright, quiet down," Whitehorse said.

He nodded at Morgan.

"Morgan, what do you think we should do?"

He blinked.

"Wait, what?"

"I think you should decide what to do next."

"Why me?"

"You had experience with things like this, I'm sure. More than any of us."

"I-" Morgan began.

"He's right, Rook," Hudson said softly.

Morgan exhaled and stepped forward. The thief looked at him, eyes wide.

"Okay… okay, man, come on…" he pleaded.

Morgan's grip on his pistol shifted.

He looked around. Jess was stoic as always and probably would not have minded if he shot the thief. Mary had her arms crossed. Grace nervously adjusted her rifle. Carolyn the flight attendant looked horrified.

Morgan knew this man had committed a crime. A crime that nowadays, certainly was up there with straight-up murder. Stealing vital resources from people who would need it.

But, did he deserve to die for it? Morgan had killed a lot of people. So many, he lost count a very long time ago. He wanted to never kill anyone ever again, if it could be helped. Morgan did not want every crime to be solved with a bullet to the head. If they started doing that, they would be no different than the bandits and raiders that were now roaming the cities and roads of America. Or the Peggies, even.

 _Not every problem can be solved with a bullet_ , someone had told him once.

"Okay. Okay, listen. Get out of here. Turn around, get on that road and start walking until you're out of the county. Don't ever come back. Because I guarantee if you do, someone will put you down," Morgan said.

The guy nodded vigorously.

"Yeah, yeah! I can do that!"

He grabbed his backpack and tossed it back on his shoulders. The people of Fall's End parted to let him leave.

"Start running!" Morgan ordered him.

The young man picked up the pace, tripping momentarily in the dark as he did so. As the people of Fall's End watched, the thief receded into the dark.

* * *

Morgan shook awake. He had been suddenly pulled out of a dream, the subject of which he could not recall. He ran a hand over his face. The events of last night had left him unsettled. No one in town was hurt, but it was certainly a sign of things to come.

Morgan absentmindedly flopped his arm over to Jess's side of the bed. He pawed around for her naked torso, but found nothing. Looking over, Morgan found the bed was indeed empty.

With a grunt of sleepiness, Morgan got out of bed and put on some clothes. Stepping out into the kitchen, he went over to the coffee maker before pausing mid-stride.

"Oh. Right," he mumbled.

Morgan sat down at the kitchen table and stared off into space. He wondered briefly what to do this morning before he finally registered the smell of burning wood outside the front door.

He got up and jogged outside, worried his lawn was on fire.

Jess was sitting on a overturned milk crate, stoking a campfire before her. A small grill was set above the flames, where a coffee percolator steamed.

"Hey!"

Morgan smiled.

"Morning, my love."

Jess nodded at the campfire.

"I'm doing coffee the old fashioned way."

Morgan chuckled and sat down on the grass next to her.

"We can pretend we're cowboys on the trail."

"Yeah, fuck that. The old west sucked, man. I'm glad I wasn't around for that."

"Unfortunately, it seems like we'll be getting that experience in every way."

"Yeah…" Jess mumbled.

A few minutes later, she poured some coffee and snuffed out the campfire. The couple headed down Main Street, taking in the sights of Fall's End greeting another powerless day. They moved to the side of the road to let a man on horseback pass.

Mary was outside the bar, unpacking a crate of MREs with Grace.

"Hey you two!" Mary greeted.

"Mary," Morgan said with a nod.

"Hey, girl," Jess replied.

"How you guys doing?" Grace said, counting out several MREs in a box while Mary was making a note of how many they had. Mary was trying her best to keep an inventory of the communal food supplies.

"We're good. Some shit last night, huh?" Jess said.

Mary sighed.

"Can't believe it."

"I knew this was coming," Grace began, "and I knew something would happen soon. I'm just glad no one we cared about got hurt."

"I hate to be such a downer, but, I think this is just the start. We're just going to see more assholes like those two from last night, and probably in greater numbers," Morgan said, speaking what was on his mind all night.

Mary nodded.

"I think I may have to put some people on sentry duty. Make sure no one's sneaking up on us like that."

All four of them nodded. No one wanted to say what this reminded them of.

 _It's like we're back at war with Eden's Gate_ , Morgan thought.

"That sounds like a plan. I'll bring it up with Whitehorse later."

Morgan and Jess helped Mary and Grace get the food inside. When they walked back out, they heard the sound of a small motor up the road. The townspeople paused their tasks as a blue Polaris UTV pulled into town, carrying two passengers.

Morgan immediately recognized them.

The kid known only as Wheaty was at the wheel, with Tammy Barnes riding shotgun. Literally, considering the woman was keeping a 12-gauge Benelli M4 firmly at her side.

"Well, look who decided to show up!" Morgan greeted the two leaders of the Whitetail Militia.

"Deputy Rook," Wheaty greeted as the men shook hands.

"Jess," he nodded.

"Sup, dude?" she responded

"Miss Barnes," Morgan said to Tammy when she walked up to greet him.

"Hello, deputy. How is everything down here?"

Morgan looked into her eyes. They held a look that suggested she felt just a least bit uncomfortable with his presence and would like to keep this meeting short. Morgan really could not blame her. After everything Jacob did, after what Morgan was forced to do to Eli Palmer…

Wheaty understood and Morgan was subjected to some intense deprogramming sessions, but Tammy had never fully recovered from the events.

"We're good, mostly. Had a little incident last night," he replied.

"Incident?" Wheaty inquired.

"Yeah. Some guys broke into the general store. Mitch put one down, we let the the other guy go."

"Shit… raiders already?"

Morgan nodded grimly.

"To be honest, I'm surprised it took this long."

"So, what are you guys doing here?" Jess asked.

"Can't imagine you're down here to be socializing and shit."

Tammy nodded.

"We're getting the Whitetails back together."

"Alright!" Jess enthusiastically replied.

Morgan could not hold back a grin.

"Glad to hear that. We could use the militia in the next few days."

Tammy raised an eyebrow quizzically.

"Wait… 'we?'"

Morgan shifted on his feet.

"Well, you know, the county, all of us could… use it."

Wheaty cleared his throat to break the awkwardness.

"We're just getting things back together. Getting in touch with all the guys and girls from the war, getting the Wolf's Den back in order… it's kinda become a bit run down since things settled down last year."

The door to the Spread Eagle swung open and Mary exited, curious about the new visitors.

"Oh, hey!"

"Mayor," Wheaty said with a nod.

"How are y'all doing?"

"We're good, we're good. We actually came down here looking for you."

"Oh? Me?" Mary said, smiling.

Tammy indicated to some indistinct part of the mountains in the distance.

"We figured it may be good to keep in touch with town. We got some guys putting repeaters around so we can get a signal over the mountains and keep in touch."

"We'd all appreciate that. Thank you. And thank the Whitetails."

They were silent for a bit. Tammy nodded, signifying the conversation was done.

"Alright. Just wanted to let you know. Wheaty?"

The young man looked like he had more to say, but just pursed his lips and nodded.

"Yeah, okay. Later, deputy. Bye, Jess."

"Later," Jess said as Tammy and Wheaty mounted up and drove off without another word.

"Well," Morgan sighed.

"That was a bit… awkward," Jess observed.

"I can't really blame them."

Mary groaned and slapped Morgan on the shoulder.

"You can't be like that, Morgan. Everyone knows what happened was Jacob fuckin' Seed's fault."

"Yeah… I guess."

"Enough moping," Mary commanded him, "come inside and have some canned bacon."

Mary began to walk inside. Morgan and Jess looked at each other.

"Canned bacon?" Morgan repeated.

"Yep. Someone donated a hundred cans of the stuff out of their emergency food stores. It's not that bad, actually."

Jess chuckled.

"God, I love America."

* * *

Beck stared at the calendar in his hands. Drawing a red marker from his pocket, he crossed off another day with a red X. He looked at today's date. October 2nd. Seven days since the crash and seven days since the EMP attack.

The captain tacked the calendar back on the corkboard in the kitchen. He observed the common space of the vacant Fall's End home he was sharing with the Hubbard family, Carolyn, and Mike. Carolyn was sitting with Autumn on the couch. They were playing Go Fish with an old deck of cards. Ellen had locked herself in one of the bedrooms and Rich was up trying to talk her down. Mike sat at the kitchen table, studying a map of Hope County. Layton was somewhere outside, wandering around and most certainly bored out of his skull.

Beck elected to talk to Mike first.

"How goes the planning, crayon-eater?" he greeted.

The bodyguard smirked.

"Fly boy."

"I'm just curious as to what we got going on in this place," he continued.

"And?"

Mike shrugged.

"Forest. Farmland. Mountains. Wilderness."

"That sounds like what I imagined."

"I'm wondering if someone can loan me a horse for the day. I want to take a ride around the county."

"You can ride?" Beck asked.

"I'm from Texas. It'd be illegal for me not to know."

"Fair point. And what do you hope to see?"

Mike sighed and leaned back, shrugging again.

"I don't know. I just need to get out of here for a bit. I'm getting antsy."

"I hear you."

Beck decided to go see what Carolyn and Autumn were up to.

"Do you have… any ones?" Carolyn asked Autumn.

"Nope," she replied with a shake of her head.

Carolyn groaned and withdrew a card from the deck and added it to her already bursting hand.

"Dammit," she mumbled, "how are you so good at this?"

"Some people are just lucky, ma'am," Beck said as he took a seat next to Autumn.

"Oh, shut up."

"How are you guys doing?" he asked after a moment.

"I'm good," Autumn said.

"Yeah, me too," Carolyn confirmed.

"What do we think of this place?"

Carolyn laughed.

"Oh, boy, uh… it's... quaint."

"Quaint?" Beck repeated.

She nodded.

"That's the word I'm using."

"I kinda like it here," Autumn said, "really relaxed and friendly. Of course, I'm sure it would probably be better without the whole… EMP thing."

"Probably, yeah," Beck agreed.

"Would you take a vacation here once everything gets settled down?" Carolyn asked her.

"Hey, it's not out of the question!" Autumn replied with a laugh.

A knock at the door interrupted them.

"I got it," Beck said.

Opening the door, Beck found Deputy Morgan Rook standing at the threshold.

The young man smiled and nodded politely.

"Hello, captain, how are you doing?"

"I'm good. We're all doing pretty good."

There was a crash and the sound of screaming from within. Beck and the others stared up the stairs to the second floor. Ellen had been roused from the room and was now screaming at Rich.

"Uh, everything alright?" Morgan asked with concern.

Beck sighed and nodded.

"Yeah… it's nothing. She's still not taking this well. It's touch and go."

Morgan gave a look of sympathy.

"Sorry about that. You know, we can have Jerome, the pastor, come talk to her if you guys want. He's good at talking to people and helping them through tough times."

Morgan offered a concerned smile. He seemed to just want to leave well enough alone.

"Well, I just came to let you all know we're serving lunch now. We got some bear meat stew."

"Thank you, deputy. We'll be there soon."

Morgan nodded and exited, allowing Beck to close the door.

"Lunch is on, people!"

Carolyn and Autumn abandoned their card game with celebration. Mike got up from his seat and holstered the Beretta 92FS pistol the sheriff had him take after the encounter with the thieves a week earlier. The mayor, Mary, wanted everyone able to protect themselves.

Beck knew why. Over the last week, he consulted both a stack of old newspapers and the townspeople regarding the recent history of Hope County.

It turns out, Beck _had_ heard of Hope County. It was a name that had dominated the news cycle some time ago. But, his job did not afford Beck a whole lot of time to sit in front of a TV and take in the nightly news. But he got the condensed version.

Eden's Gate. A fanatical doomsday cult that declared war on the entire county because its former leader, Joseph Seed, believed the end of days to be near. Hundreds of people died in the ensuing conflict before the cult was destroyed by a militia made up of numerous Hope County residents. The National Guard swept in, cleaned up the remains of the cult, and life went back to something resembling normal. Beck, as well as much of the nation, had heard about these events, as they were something that put the actions of similar groups like the Branch Davidians and Jonestown to shame.

Autumn, Mike, and Carolyn had also heard about these events, but life moves quickly and the 24-hour news cycle meant some other news story would be the most discussed event in the next few weeks.

Still, the fact that the people of this county has survived a war in their own backyards explained much about their behaviors. Most residents were not seen without a gun or knife nearby. When the thieves broke into the general store a week earlier, the townspeople had responded quickly, very quickly, as if they had experienced something like this several times already. In the aftermath, Mary had put several people on sentry duty every night and established guard posts leading into town to keep an eye on anyone coming down the road in the future.

"These people certainly act like they've fought a war already," Mike had remarked a few days earlier. He certainly would have known.

Carolyn and Autumn put on their sweaters, part of the several assorted articles of clothing some townspeople had donated to the survivors. It was getting later into Fall, and Beck was starting to feel the air getting a bit cooler with each passing day.

"So, was it that deputy?" Carolyn asked as they walked to the Spread Eagle.

"Which one?" Beck replied.

"The really cute one! Morgan?"

Beck chuckled.

"If you like him so much, why don't you ask him out? It's not like he can escape you or anything."

Carolyn lightly punched his shoulder.

"Shut up. Besides… he's already seeing someone. What's her name… Jess or something? The girl with all the scars?"

"Oh, yeah."

Carolyn scoffed.

"You should see them at dinner and walking around town. They're all over each other like some horny high schoolers."

"Leave them be. They obviously like each other. A lot."

"Yeah, I guess. But, like, I don't get it."

"Don't get what?"

"The deputy and that Jess girl. I mean, she's pretty under the scars and everything. I like her hair and stuff. But, she seems… really rough around the edges. When you talk to her- she, like, never smiles. Doesn't laugh. Never wants to have a conversation. And I've tried! You know me. And what's the story with the scars anyway? She looks like she tried to take on a bear alone. The mayor, Mary. She seems more like someone Morgan would be with. They're both hot. Or, you know, what most people think is hot."

"We don't know them very well. These people survived a war together. We don't know what they've gone through, seen, and survived together. It's not all about looks, Miss McLane."

"Hmph," Carolyn mumbled, admitting defeat.

After a beat, she looked back at Beck.

"What about that deputy that picked us up? Staci? Is he seeing anyone? He's pretty cute too."

Beck shook his head, laughing.

"You're unbelievable."

* * *

Autumn took a bowl of stew and her utensils before looking over to the crowded bar to find an open seat. She was the last one in her group to get food and could not find an open seat near them.

She eyed an open seat across from Morgan, one of the cops in town and Jess, his girlfriend. Morgan was a nice guy, but Jess was… something else. Autumn had to consciously avoid staring at the scars that criss-crossed her face. She _really_ wanted to know what the story was there. Maybe it had something to do with the cult that operated in the area?

"Hey, can I sit here?" Autumn asked.

Jess eyeballed her, looking unimpressed.

"If you have to."

Morgan shot her a look.

"Of course you can," he told Autumn.

"Thanks," she whispered while smiling.

Autumn took a spoonful of her stew. She had certainly never tasted bear before. It was like beef, but much more of a...

"It's like beef, but a lot gamier," Morgan finished her thought for her.

Autumn looked up at him.

"Yeah… I guess that's the word."

"I take it you've never had bear stew in Seattle?" he asked.

Autumn shook her head as she chewed another spoonful.

"Nope. The most exotic I've gotten was Indian."

"You know, Jess bagged this for us," Morgan said, elbowing the woman next to him.

Jess smirked.

"Yeah…"

"Really?" Autumn asked.

"Yep."

"What did you do? Trap him or something?"

"Nah, I used a bow."

Autumn's eyes lit up.

"A bow? Like… a bow and arrow?"

Jess rolled her eyes.

"There ain't that many kinds."

"Oh, wow! That's… that's really cool! Have you ever read _The Hunger Games_?"

"No."

"Really? Well, I think you-"

"Whatever, girl," Jess dismissed, looking at her stew.

"Jess!" Morgan chided.

"What?"

"Be nice."

Jess mumbled something and looked back at her food.

"I'm sorry… I just always wanted to learn how to shoot a bow," Autumn said.

"Well, since you're not going anywhere, maybe Jess can show you one day," Morgan offered.

Jess's head pivoted to look at him, a perturbed look on her face.

"I'm sorry, do what now?"

Autumn looked ecstatic.

"I'd love that!"

Jess looked in the girl's eyes and could see her enthusiasm. Even she could not keep up her usual manner for this girl. She seemed just so genuinely excited by the prospect.

"Alright… I'll think about it."

"Really?" Autumn squeaked.

"I said I'll _think_ about it!"

The girl laughed and happily tucked back into her stew.

Morgan looked at Jess, smiling in approval.

Jess sighed softly, wondering what she just agreed to.

* * *

Morgan came home late that night. There was much to do every day and few people to go and do it. He had spent the day helping the Kellett family wrangle some cattle that had got loose and fanned out across the entire Valley.

He pushed open the door to his home, sighing heavily as he threw his backpack on the floor and kicked off his boots.

So much to do today, even more would be waiting for him tomorrow.

"Hey, babe."

Jess was leaning against the threshold to the hallway. Morgan mustered a smile for her.

"Nice sweater," he remarked.

Jess was wearing his old University of Montana hoodie, a garment he purchased years ago. She smiled and shrugged.

"Hope you don't mind. It's getting a bit chilly at night now."

"Of course I don't mind. I didn't even know I had that thing still."

"Found it buried in the back of the closet."

She held up her arms to display how her hands had disappeared inside of the sleeves.

"It's… kinda big on me, though."

Morgan laughed and crossed the room to meet her.

"You wear it much better than I do," he said before their lips met.

They broke apart simultaneously, their faces still close. Jess ran a finger down his cheek.

"Are you okay?" she whispered.

"I'm fine. Just… tired."

"Are you sure?"

"I…"

Jess pursed her lips, sensing his tension.

"Sit down," she instructed, leading him to the couch. Morgan collapsed onto the couch, feeling like he would just sink into the upholstery.

"Did something happen today?" Jess asked.

"No, no, nothing major happened. It was just long, you know?"

Jess nodded.

"I know that feeling, Morgan. I… well… I can't name it and I'm sure you can't either, but you know what I'm talking about, right?"

He nodded.

"A lot's going on. And it's not gonna get any better."

"I know."

"And it's just going to get worse, and worse, and _worse_. I don't think any of us are ready for this, like truly, actually ready."

Jess wrapped her arms around him.

"Look, I know you're worried. I'm worried too. But you know who we are, right? All of us. Everything that's already been thrown at us- shit, you were on the frontlines of it all, you know. And most of the time, I was right there with you. This? This fucking EMP? We'll make it through this one too."

Morgan leaned down and rested his head on her chest. Jess gently stroked his hair and felt him shaking his head. Once, Jess hated people coming to her and showing sadness and pain. It meant they were vulnerable and in turn, that vulnerability could infect her.

But Morgan had taught her it was okay to be vulnerable sometimes- it was perfectly okay to be vulnerable with someone you loved. Right now, he was very vulnerable and Jess knew they trusted each other enough to show it.

That was why she loved him so much. Well, one of the reasons.

"I'm scared," he mumbled.

Jess had been with Morgan during times when he was afraid, when both of them were afraid. But they were not the kind of people to let anyone know just how scared they were.

"I'm scared," he continued, "I'm scared I won't be able to protect you. Protect Mary. Protect Nick, and Kim, and Nicole, and the sheriff, and Grace, and Boomer… everyone. I'm scared we'll all run out of food or medicine. I'm scared we'll all just freeze to death in a few months."

"You know… I'm afraid too, Morgan," Jess said. She would never have told anyone else that.

"You are?"

"Yeah. For all the same reasons you are, I'm sure. But I have faith in you and me, and everyone in this fucking place, believe it or not."

Morgan laughed.

"I'm surprised."

"Oh, me too. I want you to have faith too. We're Hope County. All the shit we've all collectively been through makes us a hell of a lot tougher than most of America."

"I know, Jess. I guess I'm just worried."

"There are things to worry about, but we'll take them one at a time. Whatever happens next, I have no doubt it won't break us if we work together."

Morgan leaned up and looked into her eyes. A candle set on the coffee table cast shadows across her face. She gave him a small smile.

Morgan leaned in and gently kissed her.

After a moment, they broke apart, his hands in her hair and their foreheads touching.

"We got this, babe," she whispered.

* * *

Ember Hills Federal Penitentiary was an imposing fortress of stark concrete, cold metal, and twisting razor wire. A mere week before, it was a dumping ground for people the United States would rather forget. Mass murderers, child molesters, rapists, serial killers, terrorists, human traffickers, and other assorted mad men, killers, and sadists were dumped in this isolated prison smack dab in the middle of central California.

In better days, it was meant to incarcerate those who had committed heinous crimes and had proven themselves to be incompatible with society.

Today, several days after the United States was plunged into a dark age, the story was very different.

* * *

In cell B32, Joseph Seed, former cult leader and instigator of the war in Hope County, Montana, sat on his bunk.

In his lap was a marble notebook. This simple piece of stationary was something Joseph believed to be more precious than gold. It was serving as a repository for the word of the Lord. Joseph knew God was not giving up on him. He knew his job was not over. In fact, it had just begun.

The new book was titled _The Revelation_. And Joseph knew that he needed to record the words as they were dictated to him.

About a week ago, something happened. The power went out for a minute before the backup generators came back on. Judging by the persistent hum in the background, they had not yet shut off.

Most of the inmates knew something was up, but the corrections officers acted like all was well. They got their meals and yard time same times as always. But _something_ was certainly up. Four days ago, they were all placed on lockdown. No one in or out of their cells. COs and staff members came to give them their meals, but not a word on what was happening outside was shared. Two days ago, there were brownouts as the generators assumably struggled to keep power to the prison for longer than they were expected to.

Then, many inmates noticed that there were fewer and fewer COs and staff around. They started to see the same faces more often. The remaining COs and staff looked tired, agitated, and worried. But still, none of them told the inmates what was happening.

Yesterday, the cell doors to every cell in the prison opened. When the inmates stepped out, they found all the doors to their units open. There was no one else to be found except them. The COs and civilian staff had abandoned the place, it seemed.

And still, no one knew what was going on.

Joseph had an idea, though.

He had been having dreams the past few days. In his dreams, an angel came to him. She was beautiful, but he could tell something about her was dangerous. The angel was clad in a flowing gown of black and she carried a bloody sword in one hand. She spoke of a dark age, a time when civilization as he knew it would fall into fire, famine, and pestilence. He had started to record these dreams and voices in _The Revelation_.

 _And so, the Angel of the Dark Age showed me, a bright city beyond. With a simple gesture, the angel commanded a darkness to come from the sky and fall upon the city. One by one, the lights went out._

" _Look!" she said, "look how the New Dark Age comes! The Great Dark Age is upon us, child. Only those who have the strength to do what must be done will see the new dawn."_

Joseph finished penning the words when someone knocked on the bars to his open cell.

He looked up to see Brandon Dunn looking at him. The young man was his cellmate and had been since Joseph was locked up a year earlier. Dunn was in his mid-20s and built like a football linebacker. His height and crew-cut helped to augment his intimidating stature.

Dunn was serving a life sentence for mailing a homemade explosive to an Internal Revenue Service office in his hometown of Phoenix, Arizona. The device killed six people and wounded twenty others. Dunn was not a fan of the federal government and had long fantasized about killing government officials to destabilize the government. Unfortunately for him, he had been sloppy and the FBI caught up with him as he attempted to mail a device to an ATF office in Boise, Idaho.

Needless to say, Joseph and Dunn's mutual distrust of the U.S. government made them fast friends.

"Hey, Joseph. Some of the guys got into the commissary," Dunn announced. Joseph saw he was holding two steaming-hot cups of Ramen noodles. He had scavenged a mesh bag that was full of other food items and supplies looted from the prison commissary. He had also come across a belt. Tucked into the belt was a claw hammer, which had some blood smeared onto the head.

Joseph accepted his Ramen and utensils as Dunn sat on the bunk opposite Joseph.

"Shit, that's good," Dunn remarked as he shoveled noodles into his mouth.

He reached into his bag and retrieved a Twinkie, which he quickly unwrapped and devoured in a few bites.

"Now, this is pretty good," Dunn said.

"This is what you would consider 'pretty good?'" Joseph asked.

Dunn shrugged.

"Well, yeah, I guess. For the past two years, I've been trying to scrape up every penny from my shitty prison job to buy a bag of Doritos or a bag of Ramen every three weeks. Now, I can just have whatever I want!"

Joseph smirked and nodded.

Dunn was… simple-minded. Not a bad thing, necessarily. He could be easily guided by a strong hand. He could certainly do great things.

"So… Joseph," Dunn said as he tossed away his empty Ramen cup.

"Yes?"

"What are we gonna do now? I imagine you ain't staying in this shithole, right?"

Joseph smiled.

 _We._

He rose from his bunk, holding _The Revelation_ in one hand. Joseph looked out of the cell and out into some point in the distance. Dunn stared up at him, enraptured.

"You know, Brandon, you and I have both been wronged by the people in charge."

"That's for damn sure," Dunn nodded.

"But now, I think it's time you and I and everyone like us had a chance to claim something, something real."

Dunn blinked, absorbing Joseph's words.

"Why do you think now's the time for something like that?"

"Our minders are gone. They left the doors wide open. Something has happened in the outside world and suddenly, we are the least of their concerns."

"What do you think happened?"

Joseph thoughtfully tapped the cover of his notebook.

"The Great Collapse, son."

"Collapse? Like-"

"Like the apocalypse. The end of the old world. The beginning of a new one, a new world ready to be claimed by those who are willing to fight for it."

"And you think I can be one of those people, then?"

Joseph walked over and placed a hand on Brandon's shoulder.

"Yes, you can. You have the dedication and grit to take what is rightfully owed to you. And I can see you also have the _faith_."

Brandon smiled.

"I… well, what the hell are just you and me gonna do?"

"It won't be just us for very long. There are many out there like us, just waiting to claim theirs."

"You sound like you have a plan."

"I don't have a plan. I am merely a tool that the Lord guides. I am merely conducting his will on Earth. But, I have the blueprints. I have the foundations for something beautiful."

Dunn looked around the walls of their cell. He nodded approvingly as his eyes returned to Joseph.

"When do we begin?"

Joseph exhaled softly and took a step out of his cell. His lips curled into a small smile.

If the old world had indeed truly come to an end...

The possibilities were endless.

Joseph daydreamed momentarily, of a new project, a new army of loyal followers, of a new home to claim for those that walked with him.

A _New Eden_.

But, that would have to wait. Rome was not built in a day.

Joseph looked over his shoulder at Dunn and nodded at him to follow.

"We begin right now."


	6. Chapter 6

"Ah, here it is."

Joseph watched as Dunn pushed open the door to the prisoner belongings storage room. Another inmate walked out at the same time, wearing street clothes and with a backpack slung over one shoulder.

"Looks like I just got fuckin' paroled!" he cheered while walking past the two men.

Dunn chuckled after he passed.

"Yeah, looks like we all just got our sentences commuted, huh?"

"Indeed," Joseph said.

They entered the storage room, which contained rows upon rows of boxes containing belongings confiscated from inmates upon their arrival. Several inmates milled around, reclaiming their own possessions while also looting other people's things.

"Motherfucker! My mom gave that to me!" one inmate shouted at another.

The other inmate was flipping a silver Zippo lighter.

"Calm down, boy, it's just a fucking lighter. You can get another one at the dollar store."

The first inmate reached into the back of his waistband and withdrew a jagged piece of metal with duct tape wrapped around one end. He thrust the shiv into the other man's stomach.

The lighter thief cried out and grabbed onto the hand that stabbed him. The shiv-wielder screwed his face and pushed it deeper. He twisted his weapon and his victim coughed up a wad of thick blood.

With a twist, the first inmate withdrew his shiv and shoved it into the other man's heart. His victim took a step back and fell down. Silently, his killer picked up the lighter and put it into his pocket.

He looked around at the other people in the room staring at him. He blinked and walked out. The rest of the inmates went back to what they were doing.

"Well, damn," Dunn mumbled, holding the box marked _Dunn, Brandon_.

"Indeed," Joseph replied, running his fingers over the shelves as he looked for his things.

A few minutes later, he found his box marked _Seed, Joseph_. He opened the cardboard lid and found his few possessions lying there waiting for him.

There were his jeans and the old undershirt he wore. Underneath that was the beaded Eden's Gate rosary that terminated in a silver Eden's Gate cross. Joseph ran his index finger over the worn metal.

So much he worked for… lost. But, that was just the beginning.

Next to his rosary was a pair of yellow-tinted glasses. The prison took those and gave him a generic pair that were not even his prescription.

Joseph picked out the glassess and flicked them open. He tossed away his prison-issue pair and placed the old glasses on his face.

"Got your stuff, Joseph?"

He turned. Dunn had his own box tucked under his arm.

"I found it, yes."

"Great! Let's get changed and what do you say that you and I get the hell out of here?"

Joseph nodded.

"I believe that's just what we should do."

* * *

Neither man ever expected the day to come where they would walk out of the front gates. Just, waltz right out without anyone giving them a problem. As they exited the steel gates of Ember Hills, Dunn shielded his eyes from the sun.

"Shit."

"What's wrong?" Joseph asked.

"I… I don't know. I'm glad we're out and everything. But, it just feels weird."

"We are indeed walking out free men, but we have a long road ahead of us."

Dunn turned to him.

"What do you mean? Something has happened, hasn't it? Like you said. The Collapse, right?"

"That's right."

"Well, what do we have to do?"

Joseph stopped. Dunn mimicked his actions.

"Brandon, you need to trust me."

"I do. You and I… we both know what's up in this fucked up world."

"Indeed."

Dunn looked around, as if he was carefully examining his surroundings.

"Well… everything seems okay out here."

"There's still much to see."

"Yeah… let's get a move on and see what's what."

The two men walked out into the parking lot, both surprised to see that there were numerous cars still parked in their spots.

"What the hell?" Dunn commented.

"Interesting."

"So, what, did the guards just walk out of here?"

Several former inmates milled around the area. A few gathered around some of the cars as if they were trying to start them up.

Dunn laughed at this.

"Wow. These guys just left prison and now they're trying to get back in. I don't know about you, but I'm not sure how wise it would be to be out and committing crimes right outside the prison gates."

"Hey!" a man called.

Joseph and Dunn turned to face a man they both recognized as being a part of their cell block. He was with two other men, also from their block.

"Looks like Jim Jones himself found the way out," the man commented.

Joseph smirked slightly. He was used to all the jokes by now.

The man addressing them was Declan, an arms dealer from New Hampshire. He had been serving a 30 year sentence for trafficking weapons to terrorist groups. His first companion was Curtis, a gang leader from St. Louis sentenced for a laundry list of charges after his own brother turned informant. The last man was Wei, a former hitman for a San Francisco based Triad that was suspected of killing 37 people over a four year period. 37 people the authorities knew about.

"What do you want?" Dunn asked Declan.

Declan nodded over at the sedan he was leaning against.

"Either of you guys know how to hotwire a car?"

"None of you do?" Joseph asked.

"Nah. Not even Curtis here."

Curtis narrowed his eyes at Declan.

"Why? Because I'm Black?"

Declan laughed and waved him off.

"No, because you were a gang leader serving a life sentence in federal prison. I'd imagine hotwiring cars is a pretty basic aspect of your resumé."

"Okay, maybe I should be telling you the same thing," Curtis countered.

"Touché," Declan said.

Dunn walked up and pushed Declan aside.

"Move over. I can do this."

"You're the boss," Declan said.

Dunn wrenched out the wires and fumbled with them for several minutes while the other men watched.

"I'm waiting," Curtis said impatiently.

"Fuck off. I'd like to see you try."

Several attempts later, Dunn threw up his hands in frustration.

"Okay, I did all I could. There might be something wrong with the car."

"Oh, so there's something wrong with the _car_. Right," Declan started.

"Well, pop the fucking hood and let's see."

"Alright, alright," Declan mumbled as he searched for the hood release while Dunn rounded around the front of the car.

"Holy shit!" Dunn said after he lifted the hood.

"What's wrong?" Joseph asked.

Dunn nodded to indicate at engine.

"It's… I don't know how to describe this. Like something melted everything in here."

"You're shitting me," Curtis said, shoving his way past Joseph.

They all looked and saw that Dunn was indeed right. Numerous internal components of the car were melted or fused together.

"I guess it's not running then," Wei spoke quietly.

"Thanks, genius," Declan mumbled as he pushed away from the car and ran a hand through his hair.

"What the hell could've done this?" Dunn asked.

"Are the other cars like this?" Curtis inquired.

Everyone looked around. The other inmates in the parking lot were also attempting to get some vehicles moving to no avail.

"Alright. What now? We walk?" Declan asked.

"I ain't walking. I've done enough of that over the past four and a half years," Curtis said.

"Hold up. I think we're missing the point here. Something obviously happened while we were locked up. Something bad enough that it meant all the COs were willing to just say 'fuck it' and walk out of here," Dunn interrupted.

"Does it matter?" Declan said.

"I think it does."

They all looked at Joseph. He was running a hand through his beard.

"Brandon is right. Something has indeed happened- something that has fundamentally changed the world we lived in."

"Oh, here we go," Curtis snorted.

"Listen," Dunn snapped.

"I believe that _something_ happened, and that something is the reason why this prison was abandoned and why we're free men."

"Just… slow down there, Seed," Declan began, "I read about you and your… whatever it was you had going on in Montana. If you're about to start preaching this shit to me, I really don't want to hear it."

Joseph chuckled.

"No preaching, no scripture. I'm just making observations. Does it look like everything is normal? I don't think so."

"So? What? Did the apocalypse finally happen? Is that what you're trying to tell us?"

"Maybe that's just what happened."

Declan crossed his arms and scoffed.

"Oh, come on. Sure, maybe something happened… but…"

"He may be right," Wei said.

"Oh, god. Don't tell me you believe this shit."

"I'm just saying that maybe there's a chance something is up. When I was getting my things back in the prison, a lot of guys were saying their phones weren't working. Like something… I dunno, fried them?"

Dunn gestured toward the exit of the parking lot.

"Whatever it was, if something major did happen, which I do think is true, we're wasting time sitting around and arguing about it. The nearest town isn't too far. I'm going to be walking there I can make it before nightfall. Joseph, you with me?"

"Of course."

"Right. We'll be heading out and trying to figure out what to do next. Because we are clearly not getting anywhere standing by a fucked up car and arguing."

"I'll come," Wei started, "just to town. Like you said… we're not doing anything here."

Declan looked at the three of them.

"Do you want to stay in prison, Declan?" Dunn asked.

"I don't. I'll come with," Curtis said.

Declan sighed heavily.

"Fine. Fine, you're right. I'm not doing anything anyway. But I'll just get to town and then I'll be off doing my thing."

"If you say so," Dunn said.

"I suggest we get on the road, if that's what we're doing," Joseph said. He began to walk. Dunn quickly followed. The other men eventually trailed behind him.

* * *

It felt good to walk. A year cooped up in his tiny cell with only an hour a day to stretch his legs in the yard made Joseph miss the simple, but often overlooked, pleasure of walking outside, putting one foot ahead of the other. Back in Hope County, Joseph enjoyed walking in nature, hearing the birds sing, feeling underbrush crunching under his feet, and the wind rocking the canopy above him. It was quiet, peaceful, and allowed him to contemplate his mission.

The road they were on, whatever it was called, was just as quiet. The birds were chirping away around them, insects trilled, and the light breeze rustled the leaves of the nearby trees. There were no sounds associated with Human activity- not a single car, plane, helicopter, or similar could be heard.

His companions were talkative at first, but they had all fallen silent as the walk continued. No one was acknowledging it, but they all suspected Joseph was right. _Something_ had happened. They passed the occasional abandoned car, pulled to the side of the road or left in the middle of the lane. They checked a few of them at first, but none of them ran. Soon enough, they just ignored the remaining vehicles they encountered.

"I'm hungry," Declan complained, being the first person to speak in a few hours.

They looked at him.

"Sorry about that," Dunn replied.

"Does anyone know where we are? If we're near any towns or anything," Delcan asked aloud.

"I haven't exactly been able to get out and see who's serving the best pizza around here, you know," Curtis said.

They all chuckled, except for Declan, who shook his head.

"Just trying to take my mind off all this fuckin' walking."

A few minutes later, they were all focusing on a dark lump in the middle of the road.

"What is that?" Dunn said.

"Beats me," Declan replied.

It quickly became apparent as they approached.

"That's a dead body," Wei said, almost casually.

"Holy fuck!" Dunn exclaimed.

The men jogged over to find the body of a man facedown on the asphalt. Thick patches of dried blood was spread over his dirty hoodie, which corresponded from where two arrows were sticking out of his back.

"Fuckin' hell," Curtis spat, lifting up the collar of his shirt to cover his mouth and nose.

"Yeah, man… this motherfucker stinks," Declan commented.

Dunn knelt down into a squat. He seemed unfazed by the stench of the dead man coupled with the black flies buzzing around the body.

"He's been here for, like, a week at least."

Joseph stared down at the corpse. He had seen plenty of dead bodies. The sight and stench of death no longer bothered him.

"Probably a victim of the Collapse."

"You keep saying that like you're sure something's happened," Declan said.

"What? You think something hasn't happened?" Dunn started, "you think dead bodies would be left to rot in the middle of the road with arrows sticking out of them if everything was just business as usual?"

"I'm just not jumping to conclusions, that's all."

They heard Wei sigh audibly and shrug.

"Seed might be right, Declan. I don't think all's well out here."

Declan groaned softly and rubbed the bridge of his nose.

"Whatever, man."

Dunn leaned down and pushed up the tail of the man's hoodie. Tucked in the back of his waistband was a silver pistol. Dunn reached over and withdrew it.

"I don't think this guy has a permit to carry," Dunn remarked as he looked over the gun.

"Something tells me there probably ain't anyone around who cares anymore," Curtis mumbled.

"Let me see that," Declan asked. Dunn handed him the pistol.

"Hm. Armscor 1911. The kind of gun you'd find in the bargain bin of a pawn shop or in the waistband of some guy looking to hold up a liquor store."

Declan dropped out the magazine and checked the chamber. He whistled.

"Full mag, one round in the chamber. This guy was strapped and ready for action."

Dunn grabbed the pistol back. Declan looked up at him, mouth open in protest.

"Finders keepers," he said as he shoved the pistol into the back of his pants.

"Well, we got a gun. Now what?" Wei asked.

Dunn shrugged.

"See if we gotta use it."

* * *

"Oh, thank god," Declan mumbled.

The men were coming out of the quiet road and to the outskirts of a small town. To the side of the road was a gas station with the door propped open by a rock.

"Let's see if we can get something to eat. Or some cigarettes. I could use a smoke."

"Or maybe we can find out what the hell is going on," Dunn said.

The men walked up to the front door, their shoes crunching on the gravel walk-up. Joseph looked at a sign that was taped to the front window. A message was hastily scrawled in black marker on a piece of cardboard.

 _No credit or checks- cash, gold, and trade only!_

"Well then. We got some cash on us?" Curtis asked.

"Yeah, I got a few bucks on me. I'll get you all something. Nothing too expensive, though," Declan replied.

"Cheapskate," Dunn said.

"Hey, I don't have to get you anything…"

The men walked into the store. A clerk sitting behind the counter looked up at them warily.

"Afternoon… you guys looking for some gas?"

Joseph looked behind the clerk and saw that he was surrounded by jerry cans of varying sizes, assumably full of gasoline.

"Nah, man. We're just, uh, looking for something to eat."

"Alright. Ask me what you want and I'll see what I can spare."

Declan chuckled.

"What you can spare? What is this?"

The clerk raised his eyebrows.

"Where have you been the past week?"

The men looked at each other.

"Away. We've been away. Out camping. We haven't been able to keep up with the news. We noticed that nothing seems to be working right," Joseph answered for them.

The clerk smirked.

"Yep. That's the gist of it. Someone hit us with a, uh, what was it? EMP or whatever. No power for the next couple years. That's what the radio keeps telling us at least."

They were silent. The men exhaled sharply and exchanged concerned looks.

"So, do you want something or are you just gonna stand there and process this?" the clerk asked.

Declan rubbed his face and shook his head.

"Alright. Can I get a pack of Camels?"

The clerk reached under the counter and produced a pack of cigarettes.

"That'll be seventy-five."

"Seventy-five what? Dollars?"

"Yeah, buddy."

Declan scoffed.

"In what universe is a pack of cigs seventy-five fucking dollars?" he snapped.

"The universe where some fuckers knocked out the entire power grid and the country's transportation network. I won't be getting any more of _anything_ , so I have to make what I got last. This is what it's like everywhere, so don't try to start haggling with me."

"That's bullshit! You're gouging the prices, you fucking-"

The clerk reached under the register and withdrew a large .44 magnum revolver. He pulled back the hammer for emphasis.

"I said, don't argue. Don't start a scene either. I've shot five people already for trying to steal from me and trying to cause trouble."

"We should leave," Joseph said quietly.

Dunn grabbed Declan by the shoulder and pulled him out of the store.

* * *

A mile or two later, they reached the small town closest to the prison. Allenburg. It would have normally been a quaint little town.

It was quiet. Very quiet. The streets were devoid of vehicles, not counting the several abandoned cars sprawled out where they had stalled. The former prisoners walked down the main street, past small groups or individuals who eyed them suspiciously and made not attempt to engage them in conversation.

"Damn, Joseph," Dunn whispered, "you were right. This… EMP or whatever the hell that guy was talking about earlier must've been the reason everything is, well, like _this_."

"Yeah, that makes sense," Declan said, "EMPs are caused by nuclear detonations high in the atmosphere and the pulse is enough to damage or destroy most modern electronics."

"You pitch that to the guys buying nukes from you?" Curtis asked.

Declan smirked.

"Nah, I would've been retired already if I had some nukes to sell."

The men walked past a trio of guys standing in front of a hardware store. Two of them were busy loading boxes into the back of a white delivery van. The third man was scanning the streets, a shotgun in his hands.

"What's up?" Dunn greeted.

The three men stopped what they were doing and looked at them. Wordlessly, the guy with the shotgun turned to them and lifted his shotgun to a ready position. He jerked his head down the street- a silent indication that they should get a move on.

Dunn waved a placating hand and began to walk. The others followed. Once they were far enough away, the three men continued their work.

* * *

The house they found looked abandoned, from the outside at the very least. It looked locked up tight. The curtains were drawn and a red Honda Civic sat abandoned, forever, in the driveway.

"Check it out," Declan said as he grabbed the white piece of paper taped to the door.

Clearing his throat, he read it aloud.

 _Jason,_

 _Me and Maria are meeting Kelly and the kids at the bug out location. Your mom is with us. She's okay and has her meds._

 _Come meet us there. We should be set up by the time you arrive._

 _Good luck and see you soon,_

 _Arthur and Carrie_

"Well, I hope Jason doesn't show up," Brandon commented.

Curtis grunted as his boot connected with the door, splintering the door frame as the door swung open.

"We'll tell him that the place is occupied," Curtis said as he let himself in.

* * *

The residents had left in a hurry. Most of the house was picked clean of anything usable, but they had left behind some food and drinks. The men ate some cold dinner and spent the rest of the evening milling around the house, taking things that interested them, and arguing.

Joseph was in the living room, sitting on a couch with _The Revelation_ open before him.

By the flickering candle set on the table across from him, he was writing.

 _The Great Dark Age has begun in earnest. The people of this nation look on, eyes wide and in disbelief, even long after the lights have gone out. They stumble through the streets, waiting for the power to flow into their homes once more. But it shall never return._

 _There are some out in this land who are already rising up, rising up to claim a stake in the new world. For the Collapse will bring death and decimation with an even, uncaring hand. Only those with the willingness to survive will prosper. These are the wolves. The wolves who were waiting in the shadows of the old world, waiting for the moment to rise and claim what they are owed._

 _And we must become the heads of the pack._

Dunn's heavy footfalls alerted Joseph to his arrival in the room. He was eating tuna straight out of a can, picking at the cold fish with a fork.

"What are you doing there?" he asked.

In the background, Declan and Curtis were arguing about sleeping arrangements. Wei was in the hall, pacing around.

"I'm recording," Joseph replied.

"Recording what?"

"Recording what the angel speaks to me."

"An angel?" Dunn asked incredulously.

"Yes."

Dunn chuckled.

"Alright, then," he said before turning to leave.

"It does not matter if you believe me, Brandon. It just matters if you believe in my purpose."

Dunn stopped and turned slowly.

"Your purpose?"

"Yes. To guide those with the willingness, the grit, and the faith to not just survive, but thrive in this world we find ourselves."

Brandon shrugged and gestured at Joseph with his tuna.

"Will this plan of yours feed us for the next couple weeks? Because it's sounding like we, and everyone else, are gonna have a hard time feeding ourselves in the near future."

"Of course we will cover the basics. Food. Water. Shelter. But we will also make sure to attend to what everyone needs. Their spiritual needs, a place to belong. We can build something truly great, Brandon. Somewhere where people like you and me can build anew, away from those who want to take everything from us."

Brandon stared, fully absorbing Joseph's words.

"And where do we begin with this?"

Joseph smiled and closed _The Revelation_.

"Have you ever been to Montana?"

"Nope."

"I have. It was my home for a long time. A beautiful state, a place that's been blessed by the Lord. There's a place there I used to live. A place where I had everything I needed, but it was taken from me. We will reclaim this place. And we will build a New Eden there."

"New Eden, huh? Well, that sure sounds nice. Where in Montana is this, by the way?"

"Hope County. The closest place to Eden on Earth."

Brandon shrugged.

"Never heard of it."

* * *

Behind her, the city was on fire.

The young woman jogged up the road, her scavenged backpack weighed down by the assortment of random supplies she had collected. Breathing heavily, she stopped to consult her map. She had to get on the highway. Hopefully no one else would be there. Everyone else seemed to be more concerned with looting what remained of the city. Hopefully she would not see any of them…

"Hey! Where are you going!"

The young woman turned. A group of _them_ were there, looking at her. They looked upset that she was running.

"I'm going!" she announced.

"You can't!" a man protested.

"Why not?" she snapped back.

"We still need you. The Father still needs you!"

She scoffed and shook her head.

"I'm not going to be a part of this any more. I can't."

"What? You can't! _You can't_! You are a part of us and you need us!"

"I don't need you. Fuck off."

"You-" he growled, stepping forward from the group.

Another man reached out and stopped him.

"No. Forget this. If she wants to die out on the road, let her. She's not gonna make it fifteen miles out. Besides… we don't want a non-believer weighing us down."

The first man shot the young woman a venomous look.

"Burn in hell, you cunt," he said angrily. He turned and left with down the road with the rest of his group.

"Yeah, whatever. When I get there, I'll be sure to say 'hi' to you and the rest of you people."

She turned and ran, aiming to put some distance away from the fanatics she, for several years, associated herself with. Now, she just wanted to get away from them and that life.

Soon, she stopped, her stamina drained from running with the heavy pack. She withdrew the map she had looted from a gas station and consulted it. There were a few useful skills she had learned during her time with them. One of them was map reading.

She traced her fingers over the route she would follow. It was simple, on paper, of course. Follow the highway the whole way.

The reality was she would be trekking over two states, through the Rocky Mountains, and while the weather turned to Winter. It would take months to walk there.

The guy was right. She probably would die. But it was better than sitting here and sitting on the street and wondering what the hell to do. This EMP had turned the world upside down. She, and hundreds of millions of others, were simply not ready.

So, if she was going to die, it would be on her feet, trying to achieve something. At least she would have a goal in mind.

The young woman stowed her map. She had food and water for five days, tops. No weapons besides the knife component of a multitool. It would take a miracle to get there.

Hope County, Montana. The only place she could think of to go.

So, she began to walk.


	7. Chapter 7

In the morning, the men shuffled out of their sleeping arrangements and into the kitchen. They mumbled a few greetings and began to eat what meagre food was left behind.

They sat in silence for several minutes. It dawned on most of them that their entire plan revolved around getting to this town. Now that was accomplished and none of them had any idea what to do next.

Well, almost all of them.

And he raised the question.

* * *

"So, what will you all do now?" Joseph asked them.

Declan looked up from the box of stale Cheerios he was unenthusiastically snacking on.

"I, um, I guess I'll just hang out here. See if I can find anyone who can take me home."

"And where is home for you?"

"Conway, New Hampshire. Quiet little town that hosts criminal scum like me," he replied with a smirk.

"And what will you do there?"

"I dunno. Go back to running guns up to Quebec. Get some AR-15s in the hands of a couple French-Canadian boys who can't adequately defend their maple syrup supplies from looters with only five round mags."

"What?" Dunn scoffed, "you gonna walk there?"

"Yeah, sure. I can do it if I have no other options."

"Two thousand miles across a hostile country will not be easy," Joseph said quietly.

"Well… I know, probably not."

"Oh, 'probably' not?" Dunn said.

"I won't be alone… you guys aren't staying here, right?"

Dunn firmly shook his head.

"Nah. I'm going to Montana with Joseph."

They all looked at Joseph.

"Montana, Seed?" Declan said incredulously.

"Montana," Joseph affirmed.

"Joseph told me he was there once-" Dunn began.

"We know the story, kid. Seed here started his own little Jonestown out there and now, what, he wants to start a new one?" Declan said.

"What I had out in Hope County was not a 'cult' as so many have suggested. It was a movement- an organization- of like-minded people who wanted to ride out the end of our society as we knew it. Now that the end has certainly come, I feel it is prudent to once again find people like us and build something new, build something where we will not just survive, but thrive."

Wei and Curtis looked at each other. Declan leaned back in his seat, arms folded.

"What exactly is so great about this place in Montana?" Wei asked.

"Hope County is well-equipped for the events that are currently unfolding. Low population. Plenty of natural resources. Isolated and equipped with natural defenses to dissuade marauders from invading. Or make them easier to defeat."

"But… the people there. Didn't they, like, kick you and your guys out?" Curtis inquired.

"They did. They did indeed. But, I do not intend to return alone. At my back will be a legion of men and women just like us, ready to stake a claim in this new world."

"So you want to build an army?" Declan asked.

Joseph smiled.

"In a manner of speaking, yes."

Declan laughed sarcastically.

"Wow. You are insane."

"He has a fucking point, Declan," Dunn snapped.

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah! I have nothing left here. Nothing. My family, my friends, they want nothing to do with me. Guys like me need a purpose, something to fight for. And the way I see it, what I'll be fighting for is something of my own, a place I can belong. I've never had anything like that before."

Joseph beamed at Dunn, who nodded in support.

"There are many out there like us. Many who just want somewhere they can belong. This new world has no place for the weak, the ones who expect the government come swooping in and saving them. This is a world ruled by those who take what they need by any means. And I suggest we go out and take what we need before someone else less deserving of it does."

Curtis tossed down the bowl of food he had finished.

"Shit, man… I'm not going back St. Louis, that's for sure. Guess Montana works for me."

"Yeah. Montana sounds nice. Always wanted to go there," Wei agreed.

Everyone was looking at Declan. Finally he sighed and shrugged heavily.

"Alright then. Maybe walking all the way to New Hampshire won't work out. I guess Montana is as good a place as any. They got guns there."

Joseph smiled at the men. They would have to do. For now.

"Well, then. I suggest we get ready to hit the road," Joseph said.

* * *

Morgan was behind the wheel of his Firebird. In the passenger's seat was Whitehorse, fiddling with the knobs of his radio.

"Sheriff, I don't think you're gonna get anything."

Whitehorse chuckled and stopped his fiddling.

"Worth a try, Rook."

The red muscle car drove up Whitman Farm Road, toward the Whitetail Mountains. They passed a ranch on the way there. In an enclosure, a black horse paced around, watching as her foal frolicked back and forth. Two ranchers leaned on the nearby gate and waved as Morgan's car passed.

"I must say, I do miss cars quite a bit," Whitehorse mused, "this horse riding thing is wearing me out."

Morgan laughed.

"We managed with horses for a few centuries, so I think we'll survive."

The remaining working vehicles in Hope County were only being bought out for emergencies or if the need to get somewhere quickly existed. Every gallon of gas was just as precious as every bit of food.

Morgan pulled up the winding dirt road that would lead to their destination.

"I'm almost afraid to find out what we got called for," Morgan said to Whitehorse.

"Relax, Rook, they're our friends."

"Yeah, but…"

He fell silent as he led the car to a stop in front of Fort Drubman.

The home of both Hurk Senior and Junior stood proud, bolstered by some improvised fortifications that were rather hastily erected in place. Sandbags surrounded the driveway. Rolled logs sat at choke points to act as cover from gunfire. One of the Hurks had dragged the old 81mm mortar they had out of storage, ready to rain hell on any aggressors.

Hurk Senior sat on the porch chair he could usually be found, idling rocking back and forth, an AR-15 locked and loaded in his lap. Morgan put his car into park and killed the engine.

"Sheriff Whitehorse!" he greeted, jumping up and reaching to shake the sheriff's hand as soon as both men emerged from the Firebird.

"And Deputy Rook, my favorite deputy, if you don't mind me saying."

Morgan shook his hand as well.

The door to Fort Drubman swung open and Hurk Junior pushed his way out, hefting a wooden crate with two hands.

"Oh, shit! Morgan, my man!" he cried, dropping the crate and jogging over to Morgan.

"Hey, Hurk," Morgan greeted, holding out his hand for a handshake. Hurk pulled him into a bro-hug instead.

"Goddamnit, Junior!" Hurk Senior chided.

"Be careful with that- it's worth a lot more than you!"

"Oh, uh, sorry, daddy," Hurk Junior meekly replied.

"So, what did you want to share with us?" Whitehorse asked, quickly changing the subject.

"Ah, well, gentlemen, you may know I am runnin' for state senate once more. And this time, I'll be trying more of a… community outreach solution."

Hurk had picked up the crate he had dropped and placed it next to a few more crates and boxes neatly stacked on the driveway.

His father walked over and patted the top of one crate.

"So, gentlemen, I would like to donate these supplies and provisions to you all down in Fall's End. Just a little gesture of my support for our community. And to keep everyone's name in mind come November!" he said with a hearty laugh.

"No offense, sir, but I don't think we'll be having elections anytime soon," Whitehorse said.

"Ah," Hurk senior dismissed with a wave of his hand, "democratic elections are a cornerstone of our nation. A little electromagnetic-whatever ain't stopping that. If not November, next Fall!"

"Well… we appreciate it," Whitehorse decided to say.

"What's in them, if I may ask?" Morgan said.

"Thought you'd never ask, son!"

Hurk Senior patted the crate he was leaning on.

"You got two crates with some MREs and canned goods. Surplus stuff me and Junior stockpiled and don't really need- ya know, trying to watch our diets and calorie intake. In here we got some ammunition of all kinds- mostly five-five-six, some seven-six-two NATO, nine-mil, forty-five ACP, a whole lot o' twenty-two long rifle, and twelve gauge shotshells."

At the last crate, the one Hurk Junior dropped, Hurk Senior turned it around and opened it for Whitehorse and Morgan to see.

"And from my personal safe- two Barrett fifty-cals and a hundred rounds of ammo each."

Morgan whistled at the sight of the two disassembled Barrett M82A1 sniper rifles.

"This crate costs more than I made last year."

"All of this free of charge to the good folk of Hope County. Just make sure they know it came from Hurk Drubman, Senior."

Whitehorse caught Morgan's look from the corner of his eye.

"I'll be sure to," the sheriff said.

* * *

"How's your mom?" Morgan asked Hurk Junior as the men loaded up Morgan's car.

He had not seen Addie Drubman since this all kicked off. He did not have the time to make a trip up to her marina.

"Ah, man, she's doing great! Her chopper still works fine. But, she's been trying to keep her flying on the down low 'cause, you know, fuel rationing and shit. You should go see her! She'll love to see you!"

"If I had just a _moment_ , I would. I've been busy. Really busy. That's why you haven't seen me around."

"I'm glad you came out, man. It's been awhile since we did shit together."

They both attempted to close Morgan's trunk. It barely shut. Morgan cringed as Hurk repeatedly slammed the trunk door down in an attempt to get it shut. His car, his pride and joy, was looking downright filthy. Mud stains were splattered around the wheel wells and the cherry red paint was dulled by a fine layer of dust, dirt, and tree pollen. There was very little time to do anything that did not involve ensuring the survival of the entire county. That, and the notion of doing something as frivolous as washing a car was absolutely ludicrous given the current circumstances.

"We should've bought a truck," Whitehorse mused, seeing Morgan's expression.

"Yeah… probably."

Hurk Senior came over, nodding in approval despite doing nothing to assist them.

"Now, that's all yours to share with the people of the County. But, just go and make sure they know it came from Hurk Drubman, Senior. A man trying to give back to the county he calls home."

"Will do. We appreciate the donations," Whitehorse said, as he and Morgan did their final round of handshakes.

"Good to see you, bro. Come around sometime! We need a few brewskis after all this shit. Bring Jess! And Grace! And Mary, and Nick, and everyone!"

Morgan grinned at the thought. A get-together with all his friends would be nice, as difficult as it would be to put together at the present moment.

He nodded anyway.

"Yeah, I'd love to."

Morgan and Whitehorse got back into the Firebird and started up the engine. As they pulled down the driveway, Morgan heard Hurk's dad.

"Come on junior, social call's over! We got shit to do!"

The two men in the car were silent for a few minutes.

"He's delusional, isn't he?" Morgan finally asked.

Whitehorse nodded slowly.

"Yes, Rook, he most certainly is."

Morgan shrugged.

"The guns are cool, though."

* * *

Morgan parked the car outside of the sheriff's department building, where Whitehorse grabbed several people outside and instructed them to help bring the supplies inside.

On the second crate of MREs, Jenny the dispatcher, whose new duties involved closely monitoring the ancient HAM radios for any news that crept in from around the world or calls from the other HAM radio operators from around the country Hope County had made contact with, called for the sheriff.

"We got a call, sheriff. It's Chief Stanton!" Jenny announced.

Whitehorse nodded.

"Be right there, Miss Graham. Morgan, come with."

Morgan handed off an ammo can to a townsperson and followed Whitehorse into the _de facto_ Hope County Command Center. The space was where Jenny had handled calls when she was on her shift, but the modern dispatching and telecommunications equipment had been fried by the EMP. In their place was an assortment of hardy radios, some of Second World War vintage.

Jenny handed Whitehorse the mic.

"Laramie, this is Fall's End, we read you," Whitehorse said into the mic.

" _Fall's End, good to hear you,_ " replied Chief Walt Stanton in Laramie, Wyoming.

They had made contact with Chief Stanton and the city of Laramie five days earlier. The people of Laramie, and by extent, most of their southernly neighbor Wyoming, were in a similar position to Hope County. Sparsely populated, well-armed, and not unused to doing things for themselves.

Walt and Whitehorse had hit it off almost instantly. The two men were both older and shared the responsibility of keeping things together in their pastoral homes. While neither man had actually seen each other, Whitehorse imagined Stanton looking like a complete cowboy who rode a horse to work every day and preferred to carry a Colt M1911 while grumbling about "plastic guns."

"What's going on, Walt?" Whitehorse inquired.

Stanton's sigh crackled over the radio.

" _We're hanging on, Earl. For now, anyway. We're trying to get people to pay serious attention to their food stores so they make it through the winter. We got a few thousand kids at the University of Wyoming to take care of, too. A good amount of them are resident students, too, guys and girls who ain't got anywhere else to go. How's things up there?_ "

Whitehorse paused before keying the mic.

"I guess you could say we're hanging on, too. Our people are all working together, at least. No one's really fighting. As long as we keep the tractors running, we should have enough to make it through the winter. Are you having any problems with thieves or bandits?"

" _No, not yet_ ," Stanton said.

" _We've had some reports from ranchers that they've had to shoot cattle and horse thieves. I try to have my deputies make appearances to make sure we're not turning back to the Wild West… but there's only so much we can do. It's still early, but I'm sure we'll have a lot to deal with soon enough._ "

"I hear you. We've been lucky enough to not have a ton of incidents."

" _Yet._ "

"Yeah. Yet."

" _Anyway… what I wanted to mention is that the acting president is making an address today. Soon, in fact._ "

"Yeah? Who is the president now anyways?"

" _Secretary of the Interior. That's what we've been hearing anyway. We've heard over the radio that the government, what was left of it, pulled out of Washington and are now holed up underneath Cheyenne Mountain in Colorado. Apparently, the Secretary of the Interior is the highest ranking government official that could be located or be confirmed alive._ "

Whitehorse eyeballed Morgan and Jenny, who both reflected his concerned look.

" _Earl, you there?_ "

"Yeah. Sorry. Where can we hear him?"

" _He'll be on the FEMA frequency, about two hours from now._ "

"Thanks, Walt."

" _Of course, friend. Now, let me get back to putting out the fires around this place._ "

"I should probably do the same. Talk soon."

With that, Wyoming disappeared into the static.

"Nice to see someone in the government wants to say something to us," Jenny commented.

"Yeah, well, that doesn't mean we'll be seeing the Army or whoever coming over the hills with a million tons of MREs in hand," Whitehorse replied.

Jenny shrugged.

"I know. It's just nice to know we aren't completely alone out here, I guess. I'm not worried. We got people like Jess out there, killing shit in the woods to make sure we eat. Right, Morgan?"

He grinned, thinking about Jess doing her thing out there.

"Yeah. That's what she's doing right now, actually."

* * *

Jess had heard them coming a mile away.

A few minutes ago, she had felled a Whitetail Deer that had stopped in the middle of the sunny clearing. All it took was one arrow through the neck. The animal was dead before it even realized it was hit.

She went to work preparing for it to be transported on the ATV she had driven to the hunting grounds. Jess pretended to be focused on preparing the animal to be moved, but was acutely aware of the people coming toward her position.

Three of them, it sounded like. Men. Walking unconcerned and ignorant of any sort of noise discipline. She could hear them talking, laughing, and kicking rocks and branches out of their path. They were clearly not worried about anyone knowing they were there.

Normally, Jess would have run and hid until they passed. But, Morgan had encouraged her to be a bit more trusting of people. Just a bit. In a rare moment, Jess decided to hope that the guys coming up were not assholes instead of automatically assuming they must have been.

Either way, she made sure to conceal a hunting knife up the sleeve of her jacket.

She pretended to not notice them breach the treeline and reach the clearing.

"Whoa! Who do we have here?"

She got up. Taking a deep breath, Jess slowly turned around.

It was indeed three guys. All bearded and only one of them holding a gun- a double-barreled shotgun. Jess did not discount the fact that one, or all, of them may have a concealed handgun somewhere.

The guy speaking was tall, skinny, and pale, with a blond beard and matching hair that came down to the nape of his neck.

He and his companions seemed to be taken aback by her appearance. She was used to that. Sometimes it came in handy.

"Damn, what happened to your face?" the guy with the shotgun asked. He was a bit fatter than his friends, with a patchy beard and shaved head topped by a black beanie.

"I dunno, I just look like this. What happened to your face?" she replied.

They all laughed.

"Shit," the blond guy chuckled, "you out here by yourself?"

Jess shrugged.

"You got a name?" the third guy asked. Jess noticed he was the shortest of the bunch and was holding a hatchet loosely in his right hand.

"Nah."

They all looked exchanged glances, bemused.

"She's feisty," the short guy commented.

"So, uh, what are you doing out here?" the blond leader asked.

"Trying not to starve to death like everyone else. Now, I'm kinda busy right now. Sooooo…"

"That's okay," Blond Guy said.

"Yeah. You can make time for us, right? Seems like we got nothing but time these days," Hatchet Guy added.

"Nah, I'm booked," Jess said before turning around and reaching down to haul the deer carcass up.

She felt something metal press into her back.

Jess froze. Turning her head around, she saw that Shotgun Guy had pressed the muzzle of his weapon into her back. He had a smirk on his face.

"You can find some time now," Blonde Guy said quietly.

"You should be hanging with us anyway. It's very dangerous to be out here by yourself," Shotgun Guy said.

"You may get, uh, you know, attacked by some bad guys," Hatchet Guy added with a chuckle.

Jess began to turn around. Shotgun Guy pressed the muzzle against her forcefully.

"Ah-ah… why you don't just stay right there?" Blonde Guy chided.

"I'm enjoying this view anyway," Hatchet Guy said.

Jess looked over her shoulder, her mouth curled into a severe frown and her eyebrows arched downward angrily.

"Listen, you stupid motherfuckers. I'll make this simple. I've killed a lot of people. I lost count a long time before this shit started. Now, we can all go our separate ways and pretend this never happened. Or, in the next two minutes or so, you'll all be bleeding on the ground while I walk away and leave you for the wolves to pick at. Your choice."

They were all silent for several seconds. All three of them began to laugh.

"Wow. Holy shit. Wow," Blond Guy said, "did you practice that all night? Waiting for the right moment to use your 'don't fuck with me, I'm a badass' speech? Damn, sweetheart."

"Is that how you got those scars? Fighting some bad guys like us?" Hatchet Guy asked in a mocking tone.

"Yeah," Jess replied simply. Blond guy chuckled lightly.

"Well, you can come with us and maybe we'll see what you really have to offer."

Jess took a deep breath and nodded once.

"Okay, then," she mumbled.

Faster than her untrained captor could anticipate, Jess ducked low and wrapped an arm around the barrel of the shotgun. The weapon's owner shouted and fired a shot, which harmlessly hit the grass in front of them.

Jess slammed an elbow into Shotgun Guy's face. He gasped and lost his grip on the shotgun. In one motion, Jess wrenched it out of his grip and bought it up to her own shoulder. She quickly aimed down the sights at the man right in front of her- Hatchet Guy.

His eponymous weapon was held aloft, but he seemed unsure of what to do.

"Wait!" he screamed, his eyes widening as he stared down both barrels.

Jess pulled the trigger. The shotgun bucked against her shoulder and all other sounds were lost in the ear-splitting report of the 12 gauge shell.

Hatchet Guy's face disappeared, rendered unrecognizable by a bloody wound of tangled flesh and shattered bone. He dropped flat onto his back.

Shotgun Guy roared and wrapped a meaty arm around Jess's neck, putting her into a rear naked choke.

"Hold her! Fucking hold her!" Blond Guy shouted.

He withdrew a knife from the sheath on his belt.

 _Well, I guess I don't have to worry about guns_ , Jess thought as she began to feel her air circulation being cut off.

Jess flicked her wrist, dropping her concealed knife into the palm of her hand. Forming a grip, Jess stabbed over her shoulder at her attacker. She could feel the blade cutting and stabbing into his arm. It quickly came back bloody.

Shotgun Guy shouted in pain as he tightened his grip. Finally, Jess found her target. She felt resistance as the tip of the knife pierced his eyeball. He moaned in pain and released her. Jess buried the knife up to its hilt, causing the man's cries to become a strangled gasp.

Jess withdrew her knife and his body fell to the ground. Blond Guy was stopped in his tracks, the knife in his hand shaking.

Jess held out her hand and beckoned him to come at her.

"Well, come on, buddy. Let's see how you do."

"Fucking bitch!" he roared before advancing.

He stabbed forward, but his blade met air as Jess deftly sidestepped his attack. She thrust the knife into his flank. The man cried and stumbled. Jess came behind him and stabbed him in the back, withdrew her knife, and plunged it into the side of his neck. Bleeding from multiple wounds, the guy took a single unsteady step and dropped onto his face.

Jess was breathing heavily. She wiped the sweat from her forehead with the cuff of her jacket and licked her lips.

"Fucking assholes. Tried giving you a chance…" she mumbled to their corpses.

Jess retrieved the ATV and secured the deer carcass to it. She then stripped the men of their backpacks and tools and tied them to the back of the ATV, along with the shotgun. True to her words, she left the bodies for the wolves as she drove off back to Fall's End.

* * *

The people in the sheriff's office all looked up as the door opened. It was nearing dusk and a few people had broken out the lanterns and candles.

It was Jess. They all went back to staring at the radio in anticipation.

"Hey, Jess," Mary greeted, "you're back kinda late."

"Oh, I took the scenic route," she responded before taking an empty seat that was next to Morgan.

"Hey, babe. Everything okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine," she lied.

"Are you sure?"

She frowned.

"Alright, fine. I got jumped."

The people in the room with her all exclaimed.

"Where?" Grace asked from her seat.

"Up in the fuckin' mountains. Nowhere near here. Some random dudes. No one I knew. They were probably from out of the county. But, it's fine, I dealt with it."

Mary ran a hand over her face.

"Fucking hell. We got to start patrols or something. Get some people to help out the sheriff."

Whitehorse nodded solemnly.

"More and more guys like that will probably be showing up. We need to get a handle on it."

"And we will! But don't worry! It's nothing we can't deal with. I didn't mention it because you people would all start pissing and moaning, and there's a lot of pissing and moaning going on these days," Jess said.

"Such a way with words," Morgan whispered.

She elbowed him.

"What are we doing here anyway?" Jess asked a moment later, "I just heard that everyone was here."

"The president is gonna speak," Mary replied.

"Oh, really? What sort of bullshit is he gonna say anyway? It's not like there's any big surprises we need to know."

"We just want to hear it, Jess," Morgan said, "I guess we just want to know if there's any updates. Or if anyone who can get things moving toward something resembling 'normal' is out there."

Jess shrugged.

"Whatever."

"Hey, quiet! It's starting!" someone said.

The static that was on the radio was replaced with the sounds of the Star Spangled Banner. Once the anthem was over, a man began to speak.

" _My fellow Americans. The past few weeks have been a trying time for all of us. And this is just the beginning. But know now that our enemies who committed this cowardly, brazen act have been wiped from the face of the Earth. The road ahead will be long and hard, but I trust that the people of this nation will see it through. We will see it through because our blood is that of pioneers, explorers, and frontiersmen. Men and women who tamed a wild continent and created the great nation we have today. Americans are not easily defeated. We will come back from this, stronger than ever._

 _Regardless of who you were before all this- Democrat or Republican, White, Black, Hispanic, Asian, or Indian, a city dweller or a country farmer, it no longer matters. We are all Americans and now, we are all survivors. I ask this of you- help each other. Help your neighbors. Your community. Your friends and family. A stranger who comes to your home begging for help. Because the only way we survive the next month and the next year is if we as a nation come together and give aid to each other should it be needed. Your government is still here and is doing everything it can to manage this disaster. But, the reality is we cannot be everywhere at once. Rebuilding will begin at your homes, in your backyards, and in your communities._

 _And to those who are taking advantage of this situation. Those out there who are using force and violence to take from your neighbors and complete strangers, I say to you that you do not define this nation or its people. And in the end, the good people will still be here to see what comes next. You will not._

 _This station will be used to provide news updates, each day beginning at noon and again at seven. Updates will be broadcast from Wright-Patterson Air Force base in Ohio. I leave you now with the promise that I will keep every single one of you in my prayers. God bless America. Good luck and God be with you all._ "

They people in the room were quiet for several minutes.

Jess was the first to offer commentary.

"Well, that was a load of bullshit," she snorted.

"It did contain a whole lot of… platitudes… but I think the message is right," Whitehorse said.

"Yeah. The president was right that we need to be there for each other," Jenny added.

"And the fact that the rebuilding needs to start here and we each have a part to play in it," Morgan said.

" _And_ the fact that anyone who tries to mess with us won't live long enough to regret it," Grace said with a nod.

Jess shrugged heavily in her seat.

"That advice is good for us and those dudes down in Wyoming. But the people in LA? Or New York City? I don't think they'll be 'coming together' and shit anytime soon. By the end of next week, they'll probably be eating each other."

"Let's not worry about them. Let's worry about us and what we can do to make it through tomorrow. Alright?" Mary advised Jess.

Jess nodded once.

"Yeah. Alright."

After a few more minutes of discussion, the people in the room got up and walked, biked, or rode horses back to their homes. Whitehorse sat back at the radio and listened to the static for a moment. He then began to play with the dial, listening for anyone who wanted to discuss what they just heard.

* * *

Jess was the only soul out on Main Street. The guards positioned at the checkpoints into town were up doing their duties, but she seemed to be the only one awake in the town proper.

The sun had not yet finished rising over the horizon. The warmth it provided was absent, meaning Jess had to wear a sweater underneath her green jacket. She briefly thought about the coming winter, much like everyone was.

She glanced at her watch. It was exactly six in the morning.

It did not take her long to reach her destination. The house where the plane crash survivors had been put up. She stopped in front of the door and knocked several times.

To her surprise, there was the shuffling of feet within. Someone opened the door. Mike the security guy stared back at her. He scratched his crew-cutted head, wondering just what the hell she was doing here.

"Good morning, Miss Black," he greeted.

"What's up? You're up early."

Mike shrugged.

"Could say the same for you, ma'am."

"Can't sleep or something like that?"

Mike shook his head.

"Nah, I usually get up at four or five. It's what I did back in the service… can't really shake the habit."

Jess smirked. Out of all the people that the plane crash had dumped on their doorstep, Mike was the one she related to the most. Not that either of them would acknowledge that.

"So, uh, I'm here to see Autumn. She wanted me to teach her to shoot a bow."

Jess held up the bow that she was carrying at her side and shook it.

"I figured now would be as good a time as any."

Mike smiled.

"Well, I'll go get her."

He disappeared into the house. Jess waited for a few minutes until a much sleepier looking Autumn arrived, rubbing her eyes. Her curly brown hair was unruly and refused to be pat down into place.

"Miss Black?" she asked drowsily.

"Yeah. You want to shoot a bow, right? Well, I'm here to show you how."

Autumn looked confused.

"Right… now?"

Jess rolled her eyes.

"Yes. Right now."

"But- I… it's so early."

Jess shrugged.

"Okay. If you're not into it, I can just go home…"

"No!" Autumn vehemently said.

Jess raised her eyebrows, surprised at the girl's insistence.

Autumn looked embarrassed.

"Uh, I mean, yeah, of course I want to learn. Can you just give me a few minutes to get dressed?"

Jess nodded.

"I'll be here, girl."

Autumn rushed back inside. Five minutes later she emerged, dressed in jeans and a hoodie.

"Okay, are you ready?" Jess asked.

Autumn nodded.

Jess jerked her head down the road.

"Let's go then."

A bit down the road, Jess thrust her backpack into Autumn's arms.

"Carry," she ordered, "there's some coffee in that thermos. Don't drink all of it."

Jess kept her eyes down the road. She could feel the heat from Autumn's gaze boring into her.

She looked and saw that the girl's eyes were indeed fixed on her.

"What?" Jess asked.

"It's… I don't know… everything just feels… surreal."

"What do you mean?"

Autumn laughed.

"It's just that here I am, in Montana, a state I never thought about, about to be thought bow shooting by some strange woman who has _probably_ killed people with a bow in the past. Oh, and we're in the middle of the-end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it. It's not how I imagined my life going a month ago."

"Uh… no offense on the 'strange woman' part," she added a second later.

Jess grinned.

"None taken. I'm kinda weird. I know. Oh yeah, I have certainly killed people with a bow. But they were bad people. I'll tell you about it, probably."

Autumn's eyes went wide.

"Were they… that cult?"

"Yeah," Jess replied, leaving it at that. For now.

They both fell silent. Autumn exhaled softly, wondering just what the hell she got herself into.


	8. Chapter 8

The arrow flew far past its intended target and landed out in the field somewhere.

Autumn groaned and lowered the bow.

"Shit!" she said, loud enough for Jess to hear from her seat on the wooden fence.

Her eyes widened when she saw Jess's amused smirk.

"Oh, sorry," the young woman said sheepishly.

Jess chuckled.

"Don't be sorry. You're allowed to curse around me. I promise."

"I, uh, just try not to," Autumn explained, "my mom always said it's not 'ladylike' or whatever."

"Sounds like a load of bullshit to me," Jess said with a shrug.

Autumn picked up a fresh arrow and nocked it.

"Of course, when my mom gets drunk off mimosas at eleven in the morning, she usually goes up to my dad and calls him a 'fucking dickhead,' among other things. So, yeah. Not really practicing what she preaches."

Autumn released the arrow and this one missed as well.

"God!" she mumbled.

"You're jerking back the string. Like you're trying to start a lawnmower or something. It's just one, smooth motion," Jess told her, miming the actions with her empty hands.

"One, smooth, quick motion. But not too fast. You gotta be patient using this thing," she continued.

Autumn nodded and did as she was told. This time, the arrow impacted with the outer bullseye of the target Jess had tacked onto a rolled-up hay bale.

"Alright!" Autumn cheered.

Jess clapped and nodded in approval.

"There you go."

She looked down at her watch. They had been out there about two hours now and Jess was trying her best to instruct the girl on using a bow. Jess had never taught anyone like this and hoped she was doing her best to impart knowledge onto Autumn.

Jess had to hand it to her- Autumn was a quick learner. But, the bow and arrow was easy to learn, very hard to master. Getting her to hit the target consistently was a start.

"You hungry?" Jess asked.

"Yeah. We, uh, got an early start."

"Come on," Jess beckoned, "let's take a break and eat a little."

Autumn took the bow and the remaining arrows and joined Jess up on the fence. Jess reached into her bag and gave Autumn an apple and two granola bars.

The two women ate in silence for several minutes. Jess looked over at Autumn and figured she was curious about her, about the county, about why they got put on the map for tangling with an armed doomsday cult. Autumn was probably too afraid to ask.

Jess was not very good at the whole "learning about other people" sort of thing. But, she figured she would try.

"So, what's your story?" Jess asked.

Autumn looked at Jess and blinked.

"What's my… story?" she repeated.

"Yeah. Like, what'd you do before all this? Or… what you were trying to do."

"Oh. Um, well, we're all from Seattle- my family at least. I was a senior in high school. Something tells me I won't be resuming my school career anytime soon."

"Where'd you go to school?"

"Saint Mary's Academy," Autumn said with an air of disdain.

"Sounds awful."

Autumn laughed.

"Yeah, kind of. It's a Catholic school. One of the more expensive ones in the city. We have to wear gray plaid uniforms. Oh, and it's an all-girls school."

Autumn nodded thoughtfully.

"Miss Black, let me tell you that rich Catholic school girls are the worst people in the world."

They both laughed.

"I can only imagine," Jess replied.

"Yeah… I can't say I miss going there very much."

"Look at it this way. You're stuck here, with a bunch of badass survivalists and preppers, while all those bitches are going to be eating each other by the end of next week. You got a pretty good deal."

Autumn laughed.

"Oh, I think I did."

"Were you gonna go to college?"

"Yeah," Autumn responded with a nod, "I actually got accepted to the University of Washington over the summer. I was gonna go next fall for the biology program. I got a pretty good scholarship too."

"Congrats. For what it's worth."

She chuckled.

"Thanks, it still means a lot to me."

Autumn and Jess fell silent briefly. They both looked over at a crow that landed in the field and pecked on the ground.

"I like it here," Autumn said quietly.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. You're all so… nice. I think so anyway."

Jess shrugged.

"Wasn't always like this. We all kinda had to like each other when we went to war against Eden's Gate."

Jess paused, realizing that Autumn probably did not even know the whole story of Eden's Gate and what the county went through- just the condensed version found on the evening news.

"You… know what happened here, right?"

Autumn gave an unsure look.

"Uhh… there was that guy, Joseph, right? He had a cult that he had built up over a couple years. And then one day, he went off and went to war with all you guys."

"And we took him the fuck down."

"I figured," Autumn said with a grin.

"I also figured you were a part of that, right?" she continued.

"Yeah. A couple years back, before everyone else knew just how fucked the cult was, my parents were killed by the cult, under the orders of this guy named Jacob, who was one of their leaders. They made me and my brother watch it happen."

Autumn's eyes were wide and the young woman looked speechless.

"I- I'm sorry. I really am sorry that they did that to you. That's really… fucked up," she offered.

"Thanks, but it's okay, I've made my peace. Jacob's dead. Everyone involved in their deaths are dead. I'm still here."

"Guess that counts for a lot, right?"

"Hell, yeah, girl. In the end, we won. They didn't."

"And I remember hearing that your boyfriend, Morgan, he was a big part of all that. Did you guys know each other then?"

"He was actually a new addition to the county back then. He'd only been here a few months, at most, until the cult kicked things off. All the other cops got captured by Joseph's fuckwads, Morgan got away. He caused a lot of trouble. But, no, I didn't know him until, like, a few weeks after it all began."

"Oh, really?"

"Yep. I was tracking down The Cook, that's the guy who actually killed my parents, when the cult captured me. I was locked up in a prison they were running up in this old lumber mill in the mountains. Thought it was the end of the fucking line. A few days later… some of the local militia raided the place, Morgan with them. Freed me and everyone else in there."

Jess smiled to herself, fondly remembering the days of the war against the cult and the day she met Morgan.

"After they busted me out, I was so ready to get back after The Cook. Morgan found me, just trying to check up on everyone. I never met him in person, but I knew _of_ him from my uncle Dutch. Knew he was out in the county, kicking ass and taking names. I told him I needed help tracking down The Cook."

"And he helped you?"

Jess smirked.

"I didn't give him much of a choice. Told him to follow me. And he did. Guess I scared him."

"I guess it was love at first sight!" Autumn giggled.

"Mhmm, not so much at the time. I thought he was kind of an idiot. At first. But… guess eventually I realized I was in love with this very useful idiot. And, yeah, the rest is history I guess."

"That's really cute. In its own way," Autumn said.

"And… what happened to Joseph? Did he die?" she added.

"Nah, they locked him up. He's never gonna see the light of day. If we're lucky, his ass is probably currently dying of hunger in a prison cell somewhere."

Autumn nodded thoughtfully.

"A fitting end, I guess."

"Yep."

Jess looked at her watch again. It was a little past 8:30. The sun had finally decided to make a full appearance. She graciously welcomed the warming rays to take the chill off her body that was weaving its way through her jacket and sweater.

"Hey," she said to Autumn, "you're doing pretty good."

"I am?"

"Yeah."

Autumn screwed her face, unsure.

"Uh, how do you know? I'm not really hitting the target like I probably should."

Jess smirked.

"You're not gonna be William Tell in a few hours. It's a gradual process. But I think you're doing good so far. And besides- you'd hear from me you weren't doing well. I promise."

Autumn laughed.

"I figured. And didn't William Tell use a crossbow?"

Jess jumped down from the fence.

"Don't get smart with me. You haven't earned that right yet. Go hit that target three more times and we can go home."

Autumn hopped after her, bringing up her bow.

"I can do that."

"Don't get cocky, girl."

* * *

 _This is the BBC News. It is four o'clock Greenwich time, broadcasting from London for the benefit of our friends in the United States. We have breaking news at the top of this hour._

 _We are receiving reports that a coup is currently underway in Saudi Arabia. There are unconfirmed reports coming out of the country that most of, if not the entire, royal family has been assassinated by their own bodyguards. Video posted on social media shows armored vehicles in the capital of Riyadh, members of the police exchanging gunfire with uniformed military personnel, military helicopters landing at key government sites, and fighter aircraft flying over Riyadh, and the surrounding area._

 _The perpetrators of this coup are currently unidentified, as are their motives or demands. These events are occurring among a sharp rise in tensions and unrest within the Middle East following the United States' retaliatory nuclear strikes on Iran in the aftermath of the EMP attacks alleged to have been orchestrated in part by the Iranian government and military. We will be providing updates to this story as they come._

* * *

She was tired. Very tired. That was the start of her problems.

The young woman felt like her feet were about to fall off. She was hoping that after a few more miles, they would become numb. This was how it was every day. She would wake up to her feeling the residual soreness in her feet from the previous day of walking. Then, she would walk, and walk, and walk until that soreness turned into shocking pain. Every time it happened, she would push through the pain and get some miles closer to her destination.

Back in Montana some time ago, back when she followed the word of Joseph Seed, she was in the best shape she had ever been. Eden's Gate stressed healthiness of the body and mind. They said that all of its members needed to remain in good shape for the Collapse.

Well, they were right about that. That's one good thing that came out of her time with them. She was fit. She was confident she was able to do this hike of a lifetime.

That confidence was wearing short.

Sure, she could survive a four hour hike in the Whitetail Mountains. But this was an entirely different beast. This was the equivalent of doing the entire length of the Appalachian Trail solo. And the people who did that had months to prepare, bought the best equipment, had a large, well-maintained infrastructure network to help them out, and could always call for help if the going got too rough.

She was doing this alone, across a hostile nation in the midst of a complete societal collapse full of people with guns, knives, axes, or whatever else could be used to cause grevious injury that wanted to kill her, steal her stuff, rape her, eat her, or a combination of or all of the above. Maybe in that order. And instead of having top-tier equipment in her bag, the young woman was stuck with a ratty backpack full of junk she hoped would come in handy and a meagre amount of food and water. In the place of lightweight, shock-absorbing, waterproof hiking boots on her feet were a pair of sneakers she stole from the belongs room of the jail she had been locked up in.

The young woman had quickly lost count of how many days had passed since she began her journey. Maybe it was close to a week. Maybe it was over a week. They quickly began to blend together into one span of feet-numbing tedium. She would walk until she felt she had had enough, or until her body gave out on her. After she gave up for the day, she would try to find someplace comfortable enough to spend the night. Then, she would set up a blue tarp on the ground, wrap herself in blankets, and try to sleep the best she could.

She would then wake at dawn and repeat the process.

The first few days out of the city were the hardest. She body told her to give up, but she was determined to _at least_ die halfway to Montana. But, she was sure that she had made over fifteen miles out. That would show the cultist who said otherwise, her former brother-in-arms, what's what. Hopefully, after a few weeks of this, her body would be conditioned enough.

At least her route would be easy to follow. She reached the highway a few days ago (probably). All that was left to do was walk straight. And not die.

So, for the next few hours, the young woman did this. Walk. And walk. Take a quick break. Walk some more. The mind-numbing cycle continued until something roused her from it.

On the inbound lane, which was divided from her outbound lane by concrete dividers, were a pair of shapes. Two people. Walking her way.

The young woman froze in place. Her stomach twisted at the sight of the others. Who were they? What did they want? Maybe they were just trying to get somewhere, just like she was. Or maybe they were bloodthirsty bandits would just love to prey upon a petite, unarmed woman all by herself.

She didn't know what to do. Run? Hide? Try to fight?

Fuck that. Fight with what? The two inch knife on her multitool?

The young woman decided to scramble behind a derelict SUV and lay flat on her stomach. Maybe the oncoming people had not spotted her. Maybe they would just leave her alone and were hoping she would do the same.

As she laid there, she became acutely aware of the pounding of her heart. She took a deep breath, trying to calm herself. She needed to be strong, not go pissing her pants right now.

The footsteps of the others came ever closer. She could hear their shoes beating the asphalt. The young woman swallowed hard and pressed herself down to the ground in an attempt to make herself as invisible as she could.

She held her breath as they came up to her hiding place. Her breath was caught in her throat. She just wanted to scream, and maybe cry.

It took her a moment to notice the footsteps had stopped. The other people were standing before her.

The young woman, near hyperventilating, peered out through the gap between the bottom of the SUV and the road. She saw the lower bodies of two people. She certainly could not tell who they were, what they wanted, and if they were armed from their pants and boots.

The other people did not say a word. She did not say anything to them. This went on for a few minutes. Or a few hours.

The scream that was caught in her windpipe finally let itself out, but not in the way she expected.

"Get away from me!" she shouted, "I have a gun!"

That was a huge lie. She hoped she had mustered enough confidence in the moment to back it up and make it sound convincing.

A man spoke first.

"Whoa, we don't want any trouble!"

"Then fuck off!" the young woman snarled.

"Are you okay?" a middle-aged woman, the man's companion, asked.

"Fuck you. Go away," the young woman replied.

"Are you hurt? I'm a nurse," the man said.

"I'm fine. Just leave me alone."

One set of legs took a tentative step toward her.

"Get the fuck back or I'll blow your fucking brains out! You hear me, motherfucker?!" the young woman snapped.

She figured half the battle would be about convincing herself she was ready to kill them. The reality was, she had very little recourse if they indeed wanted to come for her.

"Honey, maybe we should go," the middle-aged woman spoke to her male companion.

"Hey- you said yourself, we need to help people," he replied.

"I don't need your help!" the young woman said.

The truth was, she was ready for any help she could get. A thought flashed through her mind. Maybe these people could spare some food, fresh water, or a first aid kit.

But, no, she couldn't do that. She couldn't trust these people. Maybe they were just waiting for her to take up their offer. Then, they would kill her. Take her captive. Then what?

"Just… just leave me alone," she finally said.

There was a long pause.

"Okay. Okay, we're going," the man said.

The two pairs of legs began shuffling away down the road. The young woman remained pressed down to the ground, eventually seeing the two people receding down the highway in the direction she came.

After a while, her breathing returned to normal. She took a few deep breaths to ensure her heartbeat returned to a slow and steady pace.

The young woman pushed herself up from the ground and wiped the dirt off of her clothes. She stared down the highway, at the two people who were now fading into the horizon.

 _Maybe they were gonna help me_.

She shook her head at the thought. Instead, she adjusted the shoulder straps of her backpack and continued her endless walk. She focused on the aching in her feet and the emptiness in her stomach.

Early on, she told herself she would avoid people. She could do this herself. The people she found out here- they weren't going to help her. They wanted to hurt her, take from her. It was best to just keep clear.

On she walked. She wasn't dead yet and she did not plan on changing that.

* * *

If one could hear the laughter emanating from the Spread Eagle, they would have a very hard time believing that they were in the midst of a complete societal collapse.

For the first time in weeks, Morgan, Jess, and all their friends had gathered in the town bar for no other reason to share some drinks and take the edge off of the rough month. Three weeks and change since the EMP. It had felt like an eternity.

Tonight, Morgan was able to forget about the challenges he and everyone in Hope County had faced, and would continue to face. Tonight, they'd drink, joke, and laugh. They all deserved at least one night of that.

They were joined by a few new faces to the usual crowd that could be found in the Spread Eagle. Jordan Beck, Carolyn McLane, Mike Barnes, and even Autumn Hubbard had made an appearance. The plane crash survivors were integrating pretty well with the rest of the town. Most of them anyway. Autumn reported that the rest of her family still refused to leave the house they had been put up in for any reason other than essentials. Pastor Jerome had been over a few times, trying to talk to them, convince them to be a little more involved with town going-ons. Jerome had talked through the issues of many people in Hope County- people who had lost friends and family to Eden's Gate. He could more than handle a few privileged city folk who were suddenly well out of their comfort zone.

Morgan thought they were being melodramatic. He felt it could be a lot worse- in fact, they probably had it a _lot_ better than most of the country was currently having it.

But, he decided that would not be his concern. Tonight, his concern would be enjoying the company of his friends old and new.

Mary had broken into their precious supply of alcohol. No one would be getting blackout-drunk tonight, that was for sure, but she gave everyone enough to get a little buzz going to take the edge off. Even Autumn got a few drinks. It wasn't like anyone was around that cared to enforce the legal drinking age. Mary mixed her a few drinks that would be suitable for a lightweight such as Autumn so she could partake.

They had all gathered in the series of pushed-together tables on one side of the bar. The interior of the Spread Eagle was lit by gas lanterns and candles, which gave the bar a moody, even cozy atmosphere. Mike had stolen the spotlight for the past hour by recounting the many stories he had collected from his Marine days. From stealing another platoon's guidon during recruit training, to the time he and his squad convinced a much-hated First Sergeant that their barracks was haunted, it was stories like those that made Morgan kind of regret not going into the military. You wouldn't make memories like that anywhere else.

Now, Mike had moved on to his stories about civilian life after the Corps. Following the middle phases of the Iraq War, Mike was discharged in 2005 and returned home to Odessa, Texas. He found adjusting back to civilian life difficult and as a result, drifted between jobs and homes for some time.

In 2009, he was working as a bouncer at a local bar. His large, intimidating stature was enough to make most belligerent drunks think twice about what they were doing. If not, his black belt in the Marine Corps Martial Arts Program proved to be quite useful.

"So, one night, around, uh, what was it… early 2012," Mike was saying, standing in front of the seated crowd of bar patrons who were enjoying their drinks, "I was doing my shift at Letty's. There were some people in there, not too many. Everyone was just having a good time. These three guys come in. They were _already_ loaded by the time they got there. They'd obviously been spending the night bar hopping. But, they weren't causing any problems, so we set them up with a few rounds."

"That's always the first mistake!" Mary interjected from her seat.

The crowd laughed in agreement with her.

"Right you are, mayor. Right you are indeed. Anyway. These three guys start getting handsy with this group of college girls at a nearby table. One of them lets me know, I talk to them. I try giving them a warning. I always gave people a chance to knock it off. They start cursing at me in Spanish. Called me a son-of-a-whore, things like that. One of them, their leader, I guess, tells me that I have no balls and that it wouldn't take much to put me down in the parking lot."

Mike smiled, fondly almost.

"Now… my ex-wife is Guatemalan. I learned Spanish to speak with her family."

A chorus of "aww" rang through the bar.

"That's so cute!" Autumn whispered to Carolyn.

"Anyway. I walked up to that guy, and got in his face. That shut him up enough for me to say, in _mostly_ good Spanish, that we can take this outside and see how well his claims would stack up."

A few people laughed and cheered.

"What'd he do?" Grace called from her seat behind Morgan.

"Oh, he did what any drunk idiot with his manhood bruised would do."

"He swung?" Mary asked, in a tone suggesting she already knew the answer.

"Yep. A haymaker I saw coming up the block based on how much he telegraphed it. I just kinda took a step back. He missed completely and almost fell over."

"Yeah, Mike!" someone from the crowd interjected.

"He tried to swing again. I caught his fist and gave him a little palm strike to the nose. Just a little one. He started to cry. And tell me through his tears that he was gonna find me, gonna fuck me up- you know. His boys just grabbed him and carried-slash-dragged him out. Never saw 'em again."

A few people clapped and voiced their approval of Mike's actions.

"Thank you, thank you."

Feeling he was done, Mike began to step off the makeshift-stage. Several people cried out in protest.

"Mike, hey!" Beck called, "you ain't done!"

Mike laughed and shrugged.

"Oh, I'm not?"

"No, sir. You had plenty of other stories when we were walking here."

"Yeah! Tell us!" a townsperson called.

Mike chuckled and shook his head.

"I told those already, though. Are you sure you wanna hear them again?"

"Yes!" Autumn enthusiastically cried from her seat.

"Alrighty. Fine. How about the time me and three other guys were playing the OpFor during a fire training exercise and managed to convince two separate platoons that were supposed to be on the same side to attack each other?"

The people of Fall's End shouted their agreement with hearing this story.

Mike grinned at the enthusiasm. He nodded once and fell silent, as if he were trying to recall the details before starting.

"Okay, then. For this one… I'm gonna need some props and a few volunteers…"

* * *

There was one, and only one, silver lining to this whole thing that Morgan could think of. Indoor plumbing still worked.

The toilets still flushed (for now), water came out of the faucet (for now), and the shower still worked.

For now, of course.

There were a few problems, however. Morgan was sure the pipes would most likely freeze during the winter. There was also no more hot water as everyone's hot water heaters had fried during the EMP. And, only people in Fall's End and the surrounding area would have water, as that was supplied by a municipal water tower. The other homes in Hope County were supplied via wells or springs. Those with gravity-fed supplies would still have water, while those that used electric pumps were back to fetching water in pails or digging latrines.

Morgan, Jess, and everyone else they knew were doing their best with the cold showers, but no one was loving it. As such, many people had to improvise.

Jess was standing in the shower. Morgan was nearby, a bucket in his hands. Steam emanated from the water that sloshed within. Outside was a campfire where they were heating up buckets of water for an ad-hoc hot shower.

Mitch had a few camp showers for sale at the general store. These were little more than black rubber bags with an attached hose that one filled up with water and then hung in direct sunlight for a few hours to heat up the contents. Mitch had four in stock. Mary claimed the last one, trading him a bottle of aged whisky for it. Morgan was too slow on the uptake and Jess claimed she didn't really care about hot showers. She had been used to washing off in cold mountain streams. So she claimed. Morgan was starting to think she was indeed missing hot showers.

"Alright, give me some," she instructed.

Morgan dumped about half of the water in the bucket over her. Jess massaged a tiny dollop of shampoo into her hair. That was another thing that was running out and they would have to conserve.

"You ready?" Morgan asked.

"Yeah."

He dumped out the remainder of the bucket and retrieved a second bucket sitting on the floor.

"Nah, don't worry about it," Jess said, "I'll just rinse off with the shower."

She turned on the water, which trickled out rather unenthusiastically.

"Ah! Fuck me!" she cursed as the freezing water hit her skin.

Morgan chuckled.

"Thought you were used to that."

"Shut up," she hissed and she quickly scrubbed the soap off her, "and get me a towel."

Jess shut off the water and took the towel from Morgan's outstretched hand. She wrapped it around herself before chuckling once as she looked at him.

"What?" Morgan asked.

Jess reached out a hand and gently ran it down his cheek. He felt her touch bristling on the thickening stubble on his cheeks- a feature he was never accustomed to, until recently.

"What are you gonna do about this?" she teased.

"Ah, I know I don't look great with a beard. That's why I could never cut it in Eden's Gate."

"I think you look good no matter what's going on up on your face."

"You're too kind," he said with a smile.

Jess kissed him on the cheek.

"I am. But, you know if you _didn't_ look good with a beard, I would tell you."

"I'd be disappointed if you didn't."

"Alright. Get the buckets and let's start this over again," Jess instructed as she dried her hair.

"I can't wait," he mumbled as he went to retrieve the bucket steaming over the campfire.

* * *

The next day, Morgan and Jess decided that it was time for a social call. Up to the north, at the base of the Whitetails, was Addie Drubman and her marina. Morgan had not heard from her in some time and had been meaning to check in. His recent conversation with Hurk only reminded him of that need.

They took Morgan's Firebird. He had calculated how much gas it would take to get there and back, deciding it would be such a time to splurge. The cars were _supposed_ to be used for emergencies, but, Morgan felt he could make an exception this time.

And besides, it was good for both of them. Taking a drive down the quiet roads of Hope County, windows down, enjoying the crisp air. It was nice. All that was missing was music on the radio to sing along to. It seemed almost normal, just for a bit.

They were heading up Crawford Road, a winding stretch of asphalt where one could observe the transition from Holland Valley's plains and light forests to the rugged terrain of the Whitetails. Coming down from the north in the direction they came from were three other vehicles- not something Morgan was used to seeing these days.

Leading the group was an Army surplus LMTV, a light flatbed truck designed for hauling troops and heavy payloads. Morgan figured whoever was driving it got it from a government surplus auction, probably for under five thousand dollars. It was still painted in its original woodland green paint job.

The next vehicle was a blue 1991 Dodge Dakota pick-up. Morgan felt the truck complemented the LMTV, but he was certainly not expecting the final vehicle- a 1969 Ford Mustang.

The LMTV's driver gave his horn two quick, friendly honks. Morgan slowed down, pulling his car to the side as the small convoy did the same.

"Who the fuck are these guys?" Jess mumbled.

"Well, I have a few ideas," Morgan said as they exited his car. On the side of the LMTV was a hand-painted Whitetail Militia insignia.

The militiamen exited their vehicles, eagerly greeting him. Morgan was not familiar with them, but _everyone_ knew him by now.

"How y'all doing?" he inquired.

The driver of the LMTV smiled and shook Morgan's hand.

"Deputy Rook! We didn't expect to be seeing you up around here."

He looked over Morgan's shoulder at Jess, who was leaning against the Firebird.

"And you too, Miss Black."

"Yeah," Jess responded curtly.

The driver chuckled and shifted his rifle around.

"Uh, I just realized we never met. I'm Bell."

"That's quite the tactical vehicle you guys go there, Bell," Morgan said, gesturing to the Mustang.

The driver of the Mustang laughed and shrugged.

"If it runs, it's being pressed into service as a prime mover," he said.

"So, what's the Militia up to these days?"

Bell pointed a thumb over his shoulder at the bed of the LMTV. Loaded in the back was a large collection of wood, corrugated steel, wire, and other building materials.

"We had a meeting a few days ago and agreed we need to be prepared for the possibility of some well-armed group coming in from the other states."

"You think that'll happen? I think everyone's too busy not dying to really organize."

"Now, yeah, probably. But in a few months? We need to worry about the ones who didn't die off."

Bell lovingly tapped the side of the LMTV.

"The Whitetails had time to prepare this time, deputy. We'll be ready for whatever comes around."

"You guys do seem a little more… formal in your equipment, too, I must say," Morgan observed after looking over Bell's uniform. Yes, uniform.

Morgan remembered the Whitetails fighting against Eden's Gate were wearing whatever mash-up of equipment they could get their hands on- as long as Whitetail Militia patch was thrown in there somewhere. Bell, and his fellow militiamen, were wearing green plate carriers over long-sleeved combat shirts, US Woodland camouflage BDU pants, and old PASGT helmets with matching woodland camo helmet covers. All of these garments featured American flag patches or stickers which complemented patches on their shoulders and vests identifying them as members of the Whitetail Militia.

Hope County has itself their own little army.

"Yeah, we had a few discounts with military surplus websites. This stuff smells pretty musty, but, it's a good way to equip your local militia on the cheap. But, anyway… we're gonna build some watchtowers and fortifications. We'll use them to keep an eye on anyone coming in from the highway and, if need be, allow us to put up a defense should anyone particularly determined try to invade."

"Taking initiative around here, I see," Jess spoke up.

"Yes we are, Miss Black. See, the militia was caught unprepared back when Eden's Gate turned on us. After everything was all said and done, we resolved that we do what our original intentions were: Prepare for the worst and endure when it comes."

"We're glad for it," Morgan said with a nod.

"We're glad to be doing our part."

Morgan took a deep breath and looked out down the road.

"It's gonna get bad, huh, Bell?"

"Yes, sir."

"Of course it'll get bad. Worse than they've ever been," Jess said, "can't avoid it. All we can do is our best to make sure we're not totally caught off guard. We need to be ready for the next Eden's Gate."

"Or whoever. Hopefully it's not _actually_ Eden's Gate Part Two. Besides. Seed's probably dead. Right?" Bell added.

"Let's hope so," Morgan said.

"Yeah," Jess said with a nod, "by now? He's probably dead. If not- he should be soon."

* * *

Declan grunted heavily as he forced open the door with his crowbar. He chuckled in satisfaction as he stowed the crowbar onto his backpack.

"And that's how you do it."

Dunn scowled and shoved past him.

"Oh, go right ahead," Declan said amicably as the other men filed past him, "if someone is in there with a shotgun, they can blast you first."

"Shut up and let's go see if this is worth the effort," Dunn called.

Declan chuckled and stepped into the darkened interior of the warehouse the men had decided to loot for supplies. They had been on the road for a few days now, walking in the general direction of Montana. They had picked up some supplies along the way, enough to keep on keeping on for the next day or two. Dunn had even found another gun- a well-worn Mosin-Nagant rifle from the basement of an abandoned home. It came with five rounds loaded in the magazine. A thorough search of the rest of the house yielded no more ammo. He was down to three rounds now. He used one in an attempt to drop a deer in the woods. He had missed, however. The second round he used to put down a man they had found rummaging through their camp at midnight this very day. The thief had pulled an empty .357 magnum on them, which Curtis had claimed for himself.

This warehouse looked promising so far. It seemed untouched. The doors were all locked, the windows remained intact. No one knew what was inside, however. They all hoped for some food and warmer clothing, or maybe even some quality camping gear and boots.

Declan whistled, which reflected off of the cavernous main floor of the building.

"Look at this. There's gotta be some stuff we can use here, right?"

"Let's hope they weren't storing washing machines here," Wei said, surveying the rows of shelves.

"I suggest we split up and each take a part of this building. We need to move quickly- before anyone else shows up," Joseph said.

The men all nodded and split themselves up. They had not noticed it, but they were beginning to obey Joseph's words. He noticed it, though. That was how he would rebuild his flock. Convince those following him that they were doing what he wanted because _they_ wanted to.

"Here, let's check out this place," Dunn was saying as Joseph watched the men rummaging through pallets and boxes.

He was referring to a side room, probably an office or something similar.

"Maybe they're hiding something good in here," Dunn said in a hopeful tone as he pushed open the unlocked door.

Joseph entered behind Dunn. The two men surveyed the interior. As Joseph expected, it was a dusty collection of now-useless computers on desks.

"Alright. Not what I was hoping for… but…" Dunn muttered as he pulled open a desk drawer and shifted around its contents.

Joseph left him to search while he walked around. His shoes kicked up the fine layer of dust that was beginning to settle upon the floor after what had been over four weeks since the beginning of the Collapse. Joseph kicked a crushed Dr. Pepper can away and listened to it clatter against a metal desk. He had to admit- he believed the Collapse would be ushered in with days of fire and a sudden, dramatic end to civilization. His visions from before all showed the nations of man unleashing their weapons of apocalyptic destruction on one another in a final battle to determine who would be destroyed and who would survive long enough to choke on soot, ash, and fallout.

No. He could not have predicted his long, quiet fall into a new dark age. All it took was the lights to go out and the wheels of industry and commerce to come grinding to a halt. It was not as dramatic as the cities disappear in flashes of nuclear light. But the results were the same. The weak, the faithless, would die. The strong would arise to rebuild and reclaim.

And the great works of man would be reclaimed, slowly but surely, by nature herself, as the Lord intended-

His reverie was interrupted by the unmistakable sound of a pistol slide being racked.

Joseph paused and slowly turned to his left. Huddled in a corner were three people. Kids, actually. The oldest was a young man. He was holding the pistol in one shaking hand. Behind him was a teenage girl and another girl that looked to be slightly younger.

A moment passed. The kids looked dirty, tired, and most of all, scared.

Joseph held up his hands slowly.

"Hello," he said.

This caught Dunn's attention. Once he saw what Joseph was looking at, he bounded over and withdrew his own pistol from the back of his waistband. He trained the sights over the young man pointing the gun at Joseph.

"Hey, now, kid. Drop that shit before you hurt yourself," Dunn growled.

The boy flicked the gun over to train it on Dunn. The youngest girl whimpered. Dunn scowled at leaned into his combat stance, finger on the trigger.

Joseph reached out and gently touched Dunn's forearm before pushing it down.

"Now, let's hold on, okay?" Joseph said softly, "we don't mean you any harm."

"Go away," the young man warned the best he could.

"I can't do that. You look like you need help."

"Ben, what are we doing?" the older girl asked.

The young man, Ben, briefly shot her a look.

"Just be quiet, _please_."

"We're not bad men, my child. We're just looking for something we can use, same as you, I'm sure," Joseph said to Ben.

He turned to Dunn, who had lowered his gun, but kept two hands on it.

"Brandon, please put away your weapon. We will not harm them, and they will not harm us."

Dunn blinked at Joseph before slowly stowing his gun. He kept his eyes trained on Ben the whole time.

"Please, put away your gun and we can talk," Joseph instructed Ben.

"Do it," the youngest girl pleaded with Ben.

"I-"

"Come, Ben, they could have killed us already if they wanted," the older girl said.

"Fuck."

Ben lowered the gun and placed it at his side.

"Okay," he mumbled, displaying his empty hands, "okay, we did what you asked. What do you want from us?"

Joseph doffed his backpack and opened the central pocket. He withdrew a half-full package of Saltine crackers and gently tossed it over to the group.

The youngest girl cried out and grabbed the food. She eagerly tore it open and shoved four crackers into her mouth in two swipes.

Ben looked at Joseph and then to the food he had provided. He looked back up, as if in disbelief.

"Eat. You need it," Joseph encouraged him.

Ben picked up a cracker and put it into his mouth. He soon picked up another one.

"Were you hungry?" Joseph asked, as if he did not know the answer.

"We haven't eaten in a day!" the youngest girl said.

"What is this?" Ben asked, clearly suspicious.

Joseph gave a small shrug.

"What the Lord wants me to do. Provide. Save, even."

"We… we don't need help," Ben said.

Joseph grinned softly.

"We all need help, especially now. Why don't you come out with us? We have more people and food. Maybe we can find some more food in this building. There's more than enough to share."

"I-"

" _Ben_ ," the older girl hissed, "we gotta do something. Carly needs to eat some real food. And you aren't hunting anything with that gun."

"Wait-"

"Ben," Joseph said firmly, but with the same benevolent air he used when he ministered to the outcasts that would form Eden's Gate, "please. The only way anyone is surviving is together."

"Come on," the older girl said, "just come on. What's the worst that could happen?"


	9. Chapter 9

It seemed that in this day and age, all it took was an offering of food to gain someone's trust. It made sense to Joseph, at least. Someone willing to share vital supplies meant well. Probably.

The kids they had found were sitting with the rest of the group, who had arranged a few chairs and boxes in a circle. Luckily for them, a crate of civilian-grade MREs seemed to have been passing through the warehouse the day of the EMP. They had quickly stuffed their packs with food and were scarfing down what remained.

The kids were eating anything that was put in front of them. It was clear to see that they had had it rougher than the men the past few weeks. They were quiet at first, but their story soon came out.

Ben Prescott was the oldest at seventeen. The older girl was Caitlin, his sixteen-year-old sister. The younger girl with them was Carly Fererra, their eleven-year-old next door neighbor. The latter was not with the rest of the group. She had wolfed down her meal and had wandered off to explore the nearby shelves. Ben and Caitlin were both keeping an eye on her as she did so.

"Our parents are in London right now. They left for a vacation two days before the EMP," Ben explained, "Carly's mom's a nurse. She was taking care of us for a few days, but then she went to the clinic where she worked to get some supplies and… well…"

"She never came back," Caitlin quietly finished for him.

Ben nodded solemnly before continuing.

"Our town established this supply center and emergency shelter at the middle school. They were trying to use it as a place to ration out food and medicine. Some guys, well, a lot of guys, got some guns and raided the school last week."

"The school was down the street from us. It was like fucking World War Three out there," Caitlin added.

"Yeah. It was… bad. We grabbed what we could and just got out before someone kicked down our door," Ben said.

"Shit," Curtis mumbled.

"Yeah," said Caitlin.

They ate in silence for another five minutes.

"So, uh, what about you guys? Where were you before all this?" Ben inquired.

"We were out, camping," Dunn volunteered before anyone could come up with some conflicting stories.

"Yeah. We go… way back," Declan said in an effort to play along.

"We came back from the woods to find the world going to hell. And we've been just on the road, trying to find someplace. We got nothing left at home, that's for sure," Dunn said.

"Joseph here had an idea, though!" Wei said, indicating to Joseph.

Joseph looked up and saw the kids staring at him expectantly.

"You could say that."

"Well, what would that be?"

"We are on our way to Montana."

"Montana?" Caitlin asked.

"I was there some time ago. During my time in Montana, I realized it's the perfect place for people like us to ride out this Collapse."

"What did you do out there?" Caitlin said.

Joseph gave a small smirk. It was clear these kids did not recognize him. Maybe they would recognize his full name. But they would only know him as "Joseph" for now.

"Waiting for something like this, actually."

That wasn't entirely incorrect.

Ben chuckled.

"Oh, so, you're one of those… doomsday preppers?"

"I was. In a sense."

"I always thought those kinds of people were out of their minds," Ben sighed, "but now, it sure seems like they were onto something."

"Now, see, _I_ always thought you guys were indeed onto something," Caitlin said with a shrug.

The group shared a low chuckle.

"So, how are you getting to Montana?" Ben inquired.

"Same way anyone else is these days, kid. Walking," Declan responded.

"Oh, boy," Caitlin mumbled.

"You're welcome to come with us," Joseph said.

"I don't think anyone would have any objections," Joseph added, indicating to the men in his group.

Curtis shrugged.

"Whatever. More hands means we can do more shit, right?"

"Yeah, I didn't think we'd just _leave_ these kids here," Wei said.

"Aren't you the charitable type," Declan said with a snicker, "but, yeah, fine by me."

Caitlin and Ben exchanged glances.

"Well…" Ben began.

"Do you have a plan?" his sister asked, deadly serious.

"I-"

"You don't, Ben."

"But, these guys…"

"Look, I know what you're gonna say," Dunn started, "I know you just met us and this seems a bit too good to be true. Right?"

Ben nodded slowly.

"I get it. But, look, all I can say is- we're not _bad guys_."

Behind Ben and Caitlin, Declan and Curtis exchanged amused expressions.

"I'll be honest," Declan continued, "if we wanted to, we would've just shot you and been done with it. Not feed you first. Bit of waste, right? And you know that no one can exactly be wasteful now."

Caitlin chuckled.

"I appreciate the frankness."

"Cait…"

"Ben. I told you that I'd do anything to take care of Carly. That girl is like a sister to me. So, if this works, this will be what I'll do. Alright?"

"Joseph is a good man, kid. I trust him, and he seems to have trusted you. He's got us this far, so… yeah."

Joseph turned to Dunn and nodded his thanks for the adulations.

"Well, I will say Joseph has been keeping us mostly alive. I concede that," Declan said.

"It's what God wants, and I'm just here to do what He wishes."

Declan snickered and shook his head.

"Whatever you say. I say we finish eating and get a move on. We've spent too much daylight playing 20 Questions."

* * *

Morgan eased the Firebird down the gravel path that led to the main buildings of Drubman Marina. Jess eyeballed him from the passenger's seat.

"Why are we going so slow?" she asked.

"I don't want the gravel to scratch the undercarriage," he explained.

Morgan smiled as he could almost feel Jess rolling her eyes.

"You're kidding me."

"Nope."

"You are delusional. Even now."

"It's a lifelong thing, babe," Morgan said with a shrug as he turned off the engine.

As they exited the car, Morgan waved to Xander Flynn as he exited one of the sheds with a wooden box in hand. Assumably drawn by the sound of the Firebird, he was smiling, having immediately recognized the car.

"Yo, Deputy! And Miss Jess!" he greeted.

The couple greeted Xander in reply. The young man seemed to be in good spirits.

"We haven't seen you guys up here in awhile," he remarked.

"Yeah. It's been busy down south."

"Shit's been poppin' off here, too. I get you."

"Xan?" they heard Adelaide call from the main building, "who's there?"

The woman herself emerged from the front office. She stopped short upon sighting Morgan and Jess. She cried out in surprise and broke out into a run, not stopping until she threw her arms around Morgan.

Morgan laughed as he patted her on the back.

"Hey, Addie."

"Goddamnit, Morgan. Where the fuck you been?" she scolded in a jovial manner.

"Holding down the fort in Holland Valley and the Henbane," Morgan said as they released each other.

Adelaide turned her attention to Jess. The huntress shifted on her feet.

"I hope you're not planning on bear hugging me, too. I don't do hugs."

Adelaide chuckled and stepped over to wrap her arms around Jess anyway.

"Shut up and give me some love, too."

Jess showed no resistance and Morgan caught her smirking over Adelaide's shoulder as she returned her hug.

With her hugs done, Adelaide clapped her hands together.

"Well, now, how is my favorite badass couple doing?"

"We're doing," Jess replied.

Xander leaned in next to Adelaide's ear.

"I'll give you guys a moment. I gotta get the rest of this stuff moved."

"Thanks, baby," Adelaide whispered before giving him a quick kiss.

"Things are, you know…" Morgan started.

"Busy? Kind of a mess?" Adelaide finished for him.

"Yeah, that's accurate."

She ran a hand through her hair while shaking her head, smirking slightly.

"I feel that. Up here in the Whitetails… we might as well be in another country."

"Feels like it sometimes," Jess agreed.

"There's a lot less people up here than down south," Adelaide continued, "and I've been trying to organize everyone, like how Mary in Fall's End is doing. It's harder because we're more spread out and the terrains' harder to navigate. But the Militia's been a real help."

"Oh, yeah? We saw them on the way up. They're building watchtowers and checkpoints, apparently," said Morgan.

"Wheaty and Tammy have been pressing hard for the Whitetails to take a more, how you say, proactive approach to keeping us all safe and, you know, not dying."

"And how have they been doing with that?" Jess inquired.

Adelaide gave a slight shrug.

"Pretty good, all things considered. They've been working to distribute food and medicine to anyone who needs it, and trying to keep stock of all food they have, can scavenge, hunt, or gets donated. They also got some people doing patrols to make sure no one's tryin' to loot or steal or any other bullshit like that. And they even moved a bunch of old folks and a few disabled people closer to the Wolf's Den so someone can be there if they need help."

Adelaide chuckled and shook her head.

"There was this one lady. Ninette. She just turned eighty a week before the EMP- lived in the mountains her whole life. A group of Whitetails came to her house, trying to get her to move close to the Wolf's Den. Said they'd have someone come by every two hours to see if she needed anything. She responded by grabbing her old thirty-ought-six, pushing past them, and saying they were making her late for her deer hunt."

"Gotta love Hope County," Morgan said.

"You been having any problems with bandits and looters?" Jess asked.

"Some. The Militia and a few homeowners have been getting into shootouts with some people trying to break into sheds or steal pigs or some shit like that. Nothing we can't handle, though."

"Same down south," Morgan reported.

Adelaide sighed and crossed her arms.

"There was one incident last week, though. Militia received a call from the Gunnerson family- you remember them, Morgan? They have that lodge up on Black Tree Road. Anyway, they got there to find the house on fire and every member of the family scattered around the property shot to death."

"Jesus, man," Jess mumbled, "they catch who did it?"

"Nope."

"So they might still be out there," Morgan said.

"Yeah. Probably. See, I think a lot of people know about what we have going on here. And they want a piece of it."

"Of course they fucking do. Is the militia stepping up patrols?" Jess asked.

"You bet."

"Good. Gotta plug those holes, right?"

Adelaide attempted to stifle a chuckle. Jess shot her a glance.

"What?"

Adelaide chuckled again, wiping her face in an attempt to stop.

"Oh, come on," Jess mumbled, realizing her inadvertent innuendo.

"No, no," Adelaide laughed, "it's fine, I'm just-"

Jess turned to Morgan, who was smirking, despite his best effort not to.

"I'm surrounded by fucking children," Jess snapped.

Her comment caused Morgan to lose any remaining tact and laugh along with Adelaide.

Adelaide finished her giggling as Jess scowled at her severely.

"Okay, okay. I'm done. Let's, uh, get some lunch."

"Yeah. Feeding me should make up for that," Jess agreed.

Adelaide waved the couple toward the main office of the marina. Jess walked ahead, still scowling. Behind her, Adelaide and Morgan traded amused smirks.

* * *

The young woman stared at her big toe poking out of her left sock. She wiggled it slightly. Realizing that staring at her socks would do nothing to mend them, she sighed heavily and replaced her shoes.

The day was done. She had made her way off the highway and into a small forest, barely a little grove of trees. But it offered enough shelter and concealment. She made herself a camp and attempted to unwind the best she possibly could.

Her "camp" was a hastily-erected lean-to made of fallen tree branches and leaves. She was lucky that she had made it a point to pay extra attention during knot tying classes given by Jacob's Chosen back in the day.

It was almost cozy. She was glad to be near the Colorado border- that meant more trees and more things she could use to make shelter at night. It was getting pretty cold at night, so she had to retain as much heat as she could. Especially since she did not even have a proper sleeping bag, just her assortment of blankets and a tarp for a ground cover.

She sat on her blankets, wrapping the old, pink quilt she had found in an abandoned car around herself. The young woman learned very quickly that people kept all sorts of useful things in their cars. The EMP had left plenty of abandoned cars on the road and people had pretty much just left everything in them sitting there. Sure, they probably took the essentials, like their bags or an emergency kit stored in the trunk, but there were plenty of things people just glossed over. So, whenever there was an abandoned vehicle pulled to the side of the road, she would break into it.

Was it stealing? Probably. _Definitely._ But, she figured it was way past the point where morals should be holding her back.

She was wearing a green fleece sweater looted from an abandoned Subaru station wagon some miles back. She knew the type- the old, not-particularly-desirable sweater that probably needed a wash, but was always left in a car whenever the owner needed something warm for the drive. The former owner clearly did not think much of it, having left it behind, but the young woman was thankful for the little bit of extra warmth it provided and would probably cherish it for the rest of her life. However long that would be.

Before her, she had laid out the contents of her backpack to do her daily round of inventory. She had begun doing this at the close of each day, to determine how much supplies she had left, what she needed to be on the lookout for, and budget how much she could consume over the next day.

Besides sweaters and blankets, she found people also had a habit of leaving perfectly good food and water in their cars when they up and left. Usually it wasn't anything particularly appetizing- a crushed granola bar buried under junk in the central console, a chocolate bar that had been forgotten under a seat, melted, and solidified once more, or a bag of stale trail mix left in a child's jacket pocket.

But, at the end of the day, calories were calories and she was certainly not about to be choosy.

Dinner tonight was a granola bar (chocolate and peanut butter, at least) and some crackers. Well, rather, crackers that had become so broken up at this point she was pouring out bite-sized crumbs and chunks out into her palm.

She would down all this with purified water gathered from streams and looted from abandoned cars. Sure, water was fine and it beat dying from dehydration, but she wished she could have something with a bit of sugar, something a bit sweet. _Anything_ to make this whole thing more bearable.

That's what she needed. A red Mountain Dew, like the ones she used to always get from 7/11. She started to think about what else she could go for. A sandwich and fries from Chick-Fil-A would be nice. Finish that off with a jelly donut.

The young woman sighed and shook her head to banish the very distracting thoughts of food out of her mind. She busied herself by continuing her inventory while she ate. Eventually, she settled on her multitool, probably the most useful thing she had on her person. It was a small miracle she found in on the floor of the gas station where she had looted most of her supplies originally.

She picked up the multitool and absentmindedly played with the various tools. After her day of walking, she would settle down and find she had little to do other than stare off into space, count her constantly-dwindling food supply, and yearn endlessly for sleeping in a warm bed and waking up to coffee and pancakes. The young woman wanted to find a book or something to occupy herself with. She was always a big reader, after all.

The breeze picked up, causing her to pull her blankets closer around her body. It did little, however.

A thought crossed her mind.

 _A fire would be nice right about now_.

Yeah, a fire would be _very_ nice indeed.

But a fire would come with light and smoke, light and smoke that other people would notice. People who did not have the best intentions at heart. It would behoove her to avoid those people.

The wind changed direction. She curled up under the blankets.

 _Warm fire. Think about it_.

"Ah, fuck it," she said aloud, kicking off her blankets and rising to her feet.

The young woman spent the next twenty minutes gathering wood and kindling before returning to her camp. Sitting cross-legged in front of her impromptu fire circle, she placed her fuel in the manner she had been taught so long ago by one of Jacob's men.

Satisfied, she produced an orange Bic lighter from a side pocket, a lucky find from a pick up truck that had spun out into ditch on the side of the highway. Striking up the flame, she held the tiny flame to the collection of dry leaves and twigs at the base of her setup. Within moments, a steadily growing fire worked its way up the collection of sticks and bark.

She was soon nursing a respectable fire. The young woman smirked as she sat back, tossing in a thick portion of a tree branch into her fire.

 _Yeah, this is pretty worth it_ , she thought to herself as she curled up, letting the blaze warm her weary limbs.

* * *

A heavy footfall crunched on dead leaves and twigs scattered near her camp. The young woman was awoken by the sound, but did not stir. She knew better than that.

She wanted to shoot up from her bed, see the threat as it approached her.

And yes, it was a threat. Anyone out here was a _threat_.

But, rather, she pretended to be asleep, blissfully unaware of whatever fate the stranger had planned for her. She was not completely unprepared, however. She had gone to sleep with the multitool next to her. It was the closest thing she had to a weapon and was probably better than nothing.

 _Probably_.

She slowly reached for the tool and with her hands hidden under the blankets, furtively opened the small blade it came with.

Her eyes remained shut and she hoped her face looked natural and not like someone clearly pretending to be asleep. She realized she was facing outward, toward the direction of where the threat was approaching. Hopefully any stress on her face would be masked by the darkness.

The stranger's footsteps reached a mere two or so feet from her position, then stopped. She heard the sound of clothing rustling. Whoever was next to her was stooping down low.

She became aware of the stranger's breathing, mere inches from her face. When they deeply exhaled, she could feel it. She wanted to scream, wanted to start thrashing at whoever this person was with her feet and fists.

But, she knew she could not. This was not the right moment. She had to wait for an opening, a brief window where she could strike-

A rough hand clamped down over her mouth.

As soon as she opened her eyes, her right hand shot out from under the blankets, her multitool grasped in a deathgrip. The blade impacted the flesh of the intruder's throat.

There was a deep, wet cough as her blade plunged into its target's neck. The young woman's eyes finally adjusted to make out who exactly she had just killed.

It was a man, looked to be in his 30s. Some burly White guy, shaved head and a dark brown beard. His eyes were wide, staring down at her with an expression that resembled surprise. That was what shocked her. Not anger, not anguish, but surprise- as if the last thing he expected when he snuck up on the young woman was to get a blade in his throat.

The hand he had on her mouth quickly lifted and relocated itself to her wrist in what seemed to be an attempt to pry away the hand that buried the knife up to the base of the multitool in his neck. Even though she could tell he would have been much stronger than her in any other situation, he seemed unable to summon any measure of strength.

He coughed, hacking out blood that fell upon her face. Warm, sticky blood dripped from the wound she had made down her fingers and hand. The man gurgled as the young woman pushed the blade as far as she could, in an attempt to simply end this.

The man's legs spasmed and he fell, face down. She withdrew her multitool blade, which unplugged the wound and allowed for a stream of blood to flow out onto the dirt around her camp.

"That's a lot of fucking blood," she said aloud. She was not sure why.

For several minutes, she stared at the corpse of the man who had intruded. She briefly wondered what his intentions were. Maybe they were not so bad.

 _If they weren't so bad, he wouldn't have snuck up on you while you were asleep and couldn't do anything._

She nodded to herself. This was no time to be guessing someone's intentions. Few people in the world had good intentions at heart.

Finally, something clicked in her brain. She rose to her feet, unsteadily. The multitool slipped out of her hand and rebounded on the ground.

She sprinted several feet away from the camp, fell onto her hands and knees, and vomited.

That was the reaction she was waiting for.

She had, after all, just taken a Human life. Maybe in self-defense. But, still murder.

Back in Montana, back when she followed Joseph Seed and was willing to do anything for him and the "family" she believed she had found, she thought herself ready to kill. She trained with rifles and pistols, ready for the day when she would have to kill "non-believers" or others who would come to take away what she and her brothers and sisters were working for.

Back then, she thought she was ready for the act of killing. Now, she wasn't so sure. Had Eden's Gate remained, and it had come to this, would she have reacted this way after killing someone? Perhaps not. She would have been surrounded by her comrades, who certainly would have bolstered her spirits and filled with fervor that would have led her to believe that whoever it was she would shoot or stab to death, they deserved it.

Now, she was alone with nothing to fill her besides the faintest hope of reaching some place that would most likely not want her. It made sense her first kill was this hard.

The young woman picked herself up and dragged the body away to the edge of the woods. She concealed it in a depression in the earth that was hidden by some undergrowth. Next, she drank some water and washed her hands and face. All that was left to do now was get back in bed and try to get some more sleep and hope the man she killed didn't have any friends.

And that sleep eventually came. Something that would surprise her for the rest of her days.

* * *

The man's body had remained where she had left it. A part of her was surprised by this revelation, as if she half expected him to not actually be dead. But, the fact remained he was dead, and she had killed him.

Before she set out, she put aside any last pretense of civility and searched the man for anything she could use. He was carrying a decent amount of food a full bottle of water, things she would most certainly not refuse. He had also been carrying a first aid kit and a large hunting knife, both things the young woman felt she would have needed. She was also quite happy to find two extra pairs of socks in his bag.

There was also a length of rope and a roll of duct tape. Both useful items in this situation, but the young woman briefly wondered what he would have used those for had she not killed him first.

She pried off his boots. They were, of course, large on her, but not too large. Maybe if she wore two pairs of socks…

She shook her head. That would not be comfortable at all. Last thing she needed was blisters.

She tossed away the boots and stood up, ready to break camp and hit the road. She paused. Something caught her eye.

She leaned down and lifted up the tail of his button-down shirt to reveal a holstered pistol. She unclipped the holster from the waistband and drew the handgun within.

The young woman wasn't too familiar with guns and different kinds of guns. She knew how to handle them, sure. That was a basic tenet of Eden's Gate, after all. But she was only familiar with a small amount of models.

The markings on the gun identified it as a Ruger P95 chambered in 9mm. That did not mean too much to her, but it was a gun. A gun she would use to even the odds.

She found one magazine loaded in the pistol and a single extra magazine on the dead man's person. She wasn't planning on getting into any gunfights, so this should be good for the journey ahead. She hoped, anyway.

The young woman ate some breakfast and washed it down with some purified creek water. The events of the previous night were pushed to the back of her mind and she shouldered her bag and got back on the road. Soon, they would disappear as she put one foot ahead of the other.

* * *

Grace repeatedly pulled the trigger of her AR-10, dumping out all twenty rounds in her magazine in less than ten seconds. When the final round was sent downrange, she pressed the magazine release, flicked out the old mag, deftly shoved in a fresh one, and slammed the bolt release home.

She turned to Morgan, smirking and waiting for his approval.

"Now that's just obnoxious," he said.

She chuckled.

"Whatever, Rook. You're still mad I'm a better shot than you."

Autumn, who was a few feet away from Morgan, laughed. He turned to her.

She stopped laughing, but was still smiling.

"For what it's worth, I think you're a pretty good shot, deputy."

Morgan smiled, nodded in approval, and turned back to Grace.

"I got one fan," he said.

"Yeah, that's the only one you got here," Jess called from her spot a few back.

The women laughed as Morgan shook his head.

"Whatever. At least I'm trying to get better."

He picked up his Browning and loaded a fresh magazine.

"Alright, ear pro on. I'm going live," he warned before sighting up the silhouette target about ten yards away.

The group of them were at the Fall's End Rifle and Pistol Range, an outdoor shooting range a few miles outside of Fall's End. Morgan and Grace wanted to brush up on shooting, Jess tagged along, and Autumn wanted to shoot a gun for the first time.

Grace had taken the teen under her wing, imparting knowledge better than Morgan could ever hope. Grace had bought along a few guns from home for Autumn to plink with. She was starting off with a Ruger 10/22 rifle and a Smith and Wesson M&P, both chambered in .22 Long Rifle. Grace wanted her to become familiar and comfortable with firearms before shooting anything larger than a .22.

Jess was watching, since she made it known to everyone who would listen that bows were _clearly_ superior to guns. Morgan would just smile and nod when she went on about it.

"How you doing there, Autumn?" Grace asked after a few magazine swaps.

She nodded in approval.

"I'm pretty good. This is fun!"

"Yeah?"

"Yeah! I didn't think it would be this cool. I thought every gun would be, like, you know… loud and heavy."

"Not every gun," Morgan interjected, "but the really cool ones typically are."

Grace smiled.

"That is the truth."

"So, what do you like better so far?" Jess asked from her spot, "guns or a bow and arrow?"

Autumn tapped the side of the 10/22 rifle thoughtfully.

"Hmm... hard to say. I think I kinda dig bows a bit more."

"That's my girl," Jess approvingly stated.

Autumn doffed her ear muffs to rub her sore ears. She paused and looked out to the road.

"Hey," she said, "someone's coming."

The rest of the group removed their ear protection. A car could be heard coming up the gravel road to the range.

The group, still carrying their weapons, left their stations to meet the visitor. Morgan smiled when he saw the car, knowing it could only be one person. That person was Lance DeFeo, a retired physician from New York who had moved to Hope County a few months after the defeat of Eden's Gate. He was behind the wheel of his 1977 International Harvester Scout II.

Morgan holstered his pistol and waved. The SUV came to a stop and Lance jumped out. Morgan's smile faded as the older man jogged toward them with urgency.

"Deputies!" he cried.

"What's wrong, doctor?" Grace inquired.

He shook his head.

"Earl sent me to get you two. He figured you wouldn't hear the radio with the shooting going on. We have a problem."

Straight to the point.

Morgan and Grace exchanged looks.

"A problem?" Morgan repeated.

"There's a large group of people, some bandits I guess, that've taken over someone's property near the edge of the Valley."

Doctor DeFeo was always quite blunt in his conversations.

"Is the sheriff there?" Jess asked.

"Yeah. He's gathering up people."

"I guess we're not negotiating, then," Grace said.

"No, ma'am," the doctor said with a shake of his head.

Morgan nodded.

"Right, then. Should we go evict them?"

Grace was already moving for the SUV.

"Time to work?" Jess asked.

"Yeah."

"I'll take Autumn home and meet you where the sheriff wants us. Cool?"

Morgan gave a small smile.

"Wouldn't go anywhere without you with me."

Jess returned his smile.

"Damn right," she whispered.


End file.
